The first thought that occurred to me, that night when I heard the chairman of the jury announce my name, was, Just think how many people hate me at this moment. Naturally, I wanted to annoy those people even further by being arrogant.

Sleep is uncanny, I have always found it so, a nightly dress-rehearsal for being dead.

...being alone with him was like being in a room which someone had just violently left

All art at a certain level is entertainment. We go to a tragedy by Sophocles to be entertained.

You will remember this when all else fades, this moment, here, together, by this well. There will be certain days, and certain nights, you’ll feel my presence near you, hear my voice. You’ll think you have imagined it and yet, inside you, you will catch an answering cry. On April evenings, when the rain has ceased, your heart will shake, you’ll weep for nothing, pine for what’s not there. For you, this life will never be enough, there will forever be an emptiness, where once the god was all in all in you.

I'm a hopeless 19th-century romantic.

It's great people still care about books, and it's great you can still fashion a life from literature.