Men love war because it allows them to look serious. Because it is the one thing that stops women laughing at them.

Only one same reason is shared by all of us: we wish to create worlds as real as, but other than the world that is. Or was. This is why we cannot plan. We know a world is an organism, not a machine. We also know that a genuinely created world must be independent of its creator; a planned world (a world that fully reveals its planning) is a dead world. It is only when our characters and events begin to disobey us that they begin to live.

Death is the room that is always empty.

My hatred of crowds, the obviousness of crowds, of anything en masse. Is this why I like little-known books? A general desire to escape the main world.

It's despair at the lack of feeling, of love, of reason in the world. It's despair that anyone can even contemplate the idea of dropping a bomb or ordering that it should be dropped. It's despair that so few of us care. It's despair that there's so much brutality and callousness in the world. It's despair that perfectly normal young men can be made vicious and evil because they've won a lot of money. And then do what you've done to me.

You come to the United States not knowing what to expect. Then all your worst prejudices are confirmed.

Greece is like a mirror. It makes you suffer. Then you learn.' To live alone?' To live. With what you are.