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?

You can learn more by going to the opera than you ever can by reading Emerson. Like that there are two sexes.

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

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

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?

Doubtless these are inconsequential perplexities. Still, inconsequential perplexities have now and again been known to become the fundamental mood of existence, one suspects.

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