It is astonishing to think that millions of people in my time—now, too, I suppose—actually thought that at a given moment in history two human beings had evolved to a higher state than that of all the gods that ever were or ever will be. This is titanism, as the Greeks would say. This is madness.

If the splitter of hairs has a sharp enough knife, the fact of life itself can be chopped into nothing.

Many writers who choose to be active in the world lose not virtue but time, and that stillness without which literature cannot be made.

For true happiness, it is not enough to be successful oneself . . . one's friends must fail.

Apparently, a democracy is a place where numerous elections are held at great cost without issues and with interchangeable candidates.

The most interesting thing about writing is the way that it obliterates time. Three hours seem like three minutes.

Once people get hung up on theology, they've lost sanity forever.