The price one pays for pursuing any profession or calling is an intimate knowledge of its ugly side.

The primary distinction of the artist is that he must actively cultivate that state which most men, necessarily, must avoid: the state of being alone.

I'm beginning to think that maybe everything that happens makes sense. Like, if it didn't make sense, how could it happen?

A devotion to humanity is... too easily equated with a devotion to a Cause, and Causes, as we know, are notoriously bloodthirsty.

After my best friend jumped off the bridge, I knew that I was next. So-Paris. With forty dollars and a one-way ticket.

You don’t have a home until you leave it and then, when you have left it, you never can go back.

Not only was I not born to be a slave; I was not born to hope to become the equal of the slave master.