The cruellest thing you can do to Kerouac is reread him at thirty-eight.

Without love, most of life remains concealed. Nothing is as fascinating as love, unfortunately.

It seemed to me that the real philosophical breakthroughs of the 20th century were in terms of the understanding of language. What is language? Where does it come from, how does it work, what does it do?

If you never left anything or anyone there would be no room for the new. Naturally, to move on is an infidelity -- to others, to the past, to old notions of oneself. Perhaps every day should contain at least one essential infidelity or necessary betrayal. It would be an optimistic, hopeful act, guaranteeing belief in the future -- a declaration that things can be not only different but better.

These days everyone was insisting on their identity, coming out as a man, woman, gay, black, Jew - brandishing whichever features they could claim, as if without a tag they wouldn’t be human.

And silence, like darkness, can be kind; it, too, is a language.

I don't want to be loved. I want to be desired. Love is safety, but desire is foul.