It is unrealistic to think you can have an inflexible identity that never has to give or take or make compromises.

Or maybe what he fears is just the opposite: that nobody is looking; that his death, like his life, is without purpose; that there is neither greater good nor evil--only people living and dying because their bodies function and then do not; that the universe is a rip.

I need an office, so I can have a place where I don't write.

All really great artists, Jackson Pollack, John Cage, Beckett or Joyce - you are never indifferent to them.

They reciprocated the great and saving lie--that our love for things is greater than our lover for our love for things--willfully playing the parts they wrote for themselves, willfully creating and believing fictions necessary for life.

When I heard your organization was recording testimonies, I knew I had to come. She died in my arms, saying 'I don't want to die.' That is what death is like. It doesn't matter what uniforms the soldiers are wearing. It doesn't matter how good the weapons are. I thought if everyone could see what I saw, we would never have war anymore.

You cannot protect yourself from sadness without protecting yourself from happiness.