I would never be part of anything. I would never really belong anywhere, and I knew it, and all my life would be the same, trying to belong, and failing. Always something would go wrong. I am a stranger and I always will be, and after all I didn’t really care.

I like shape very much. A novel has to have shape, and life doesn't have any.

I sit at my window and the words fly past me like birds — with God's help I catch some.

Next week, or next month, or next year I will kill myself. But I might as well last out my month's rent, which has been paid up.

...I know all about myself now, I know. You've told me so often. You haven't left me one rag of illusion to clothe myself in.

You imagine the carefully pruned, shaped thing that is presented to you is truth. That is just what it isn't. The truth is improbable, the truth is fantastic; it's in what you think is a distorting mirror that you see the truth.

very few people change after well say seven or seventeen. Not really. They get more this or more that and of course look a bit different. But inside they are the same.