Once, I had a dream of fame. Generally, even then, I was lonely.

I also believe I met William Gaddis once. He did not look Italian.

Was it really some other person I was so anxious to discover...or was it only my own solitude that I could not abide?

Once, I had a dream of fame. Generally, even then, I was lonely.

You will say that I am old and mad, was what Michaelangelo wrote, but I answer that there is no better way of being sane and free from anxiety than by being mad.

Can Protagonist think of a single film that interests him as much as the three-hundredth best book he ever read?

Is T.S. Eliot the only poet one can think of who could have spent a year on his own in Paris at twenty-three—and managed to have no sexual encounter whatsoever?