The parts of me that used to think I was different or smarter or whatever, almost made me die.

We live today in a world where most of the really important developments in everything from math and physics and astronomy to public policy and psychology and classical music are so extremely abstract and technically complex and context-dependent that it's next to impossible for the ordinary citizen to feel that they (the developments) have much relevance to her actual life.

We will, of course, without hesitation use art to parody, ridicule, debunk, or criticize ideologies.

The truth will set you free. But not until it is finished with you.

I do things like get in a taxi and say, "The library, and step on it.

The severing of an established connection is exponentially more painful than the rejection of an attempted connection.

A novelist has to know enough about a subject to fool the passenger next to him on an airplane.