The wickedness of men is that their power breeds stupidity and blindness.

The further on we go, the more meaning there is, but the less articulable. You live your life and the older you get- the more specifically you harvest- the more precious becomes every ounce and spasm. Your life and times don’t drain of meaning because they become more contradictory, ornamented by paradox, inexplicable. The less explicable, the more meaning. The less like a mathematics equation (a sum game); the more like music (significant secret).

I never write a book unless I can't help it. Something has to bother me, like a mosquito, until I have to do something to relieve the itch.

If you have an ancestor who is a Benedictine monk, we would rather not know it.

The more civilized we become, the more horrendous our entertainments.

It appears history is going to keep happening, despite our hopes for retirement.

We only have babies when we're young enough not to know how grim life turns out. Once we really get the full measure of it--we're slow learners, we women--we dry up in disgust and sensibly halt production.