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

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

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.

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

In fact one frequently seemed to gather all sorts of similar information about subjects one had less than profound interest in.

Once, Turner had himself lashed to the mast of a ship for several hours, during a furious storm, so that he could later paint the storm. Obviously, it was not the storm itself that Turner intended to paint. What he intended to paint was a representation of the storm. One's language is frequently imprecise in that manner, I have discovered.

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