We are what we have been told about ourselves. We are the sum of the messages we have received. The true messages. The false messages.

Goals incapable of attainment have driven many a man to despair, but despair is easier to get to than that -- one need merely look out of the window, for example.

The important thing is the educational experience itself — how to survive it.

And I sat there getting drunker and drunker and more in love and more in love...And you can never touch a girl in the same way more than once, twice, or another number of times however much you may wish to hold, wrap, or otherwise fix her hand, or look, or some other quality, or incident, known to you previously.

The aim of literature ... is the creation of a strange object covered with fur which breaks your heart.

There's not a strong autobiographical strain in my fiction. A few bits of fact here and there.

And I sat there getting drunker and drunker and more in love and more in love.