Anger can be borne - it can even be satisfying - if it can gather into words and explode in a storm, or a rapier-sharp attack. But without these means of ventilation, it only turns back inward, building and swirling like a head of stream - building to an impotent, murderous rage.

While we allow the inhabitants of imaginary remote corners the authenticity of savages or sufferers, we rarely suppose them to possess the authenticity of complex, sophisticated perceptions.

The more words I have, the more distinct, precise my perceptions become--and such lucidity is a form of joy.

The worst losses come at night.

Laughter is the lightning rod of play, the eroticism of conversation.

The vision of an entire world becoming just like us is at least as discomfiting as the thought that most of it won't.

There is nothing like a gleam of humor to reassure you that a fellow human being is ticking inside a strange face.