New York is of course many cities, and an exile does not return to the one he left.

Movies are, like sharp sunlight, merciless; we do not imagine, we view.

Religion enables us to ignore nothingness and get on with the jobs of life.

Hope bases vast premises on foolish accidents, and reads a word where in fact only a scribble exists.

We're past the age of heroes and hero kings. ... Most of our lives are basically mundane and dull, and it's up to the writer to find ways to make them interesting.

It skims in through the eye, and by means of the utterly delicate retina hurls shadows like insect legs inward for translation. Then an immense space opens up in silence and an endlessly fecund sub-universe the writer descends, and asks the reader to descend after him, not merely to gain instructions but also to experience delight, the delight of mind freed from matter and exultant in the strength it has stolen from matter.

Being naked approaches being revolutionary; going barefoot is mere populism.