Trains induce such terrible anxiety. They image the possibility of total and irrevocable failure. They are also dirty, rackety, packed with strangers, an object lesson in the foul contingency of life: the talkative fellow-traveller, the possibility of children.

Only lies and evil come from letting people off.

We defend ourselves by descriptions and tame the world by generalizing.

In philosophy if you aren't moving at a snail's pace you aren't moving at all.

I just enjoy translating, it's like opening one's mouth and hearing someone else's voice emerge.

There is a gulf fixed between those who can sleep and those who cannot. It is one of the greatest divisions of the human race.

The bicycle is the most civilized conveyance known to man.