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?

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.

No amount of promises can guarantee love

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

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

I began to enjoy my own generosity; I felt the pleasure of pleasing others, especially as this was accompanied by money-power. I was paying for them; they were grateful, they had to be; and they could no longer see me as a failure.

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