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

The philosopher Elaine Scarry has observed that "beauty always takes place in the particular." Cruelty, on the other hand, prefers abstraction.

Please be truthful, but also please be benevolent, please.

He Wrote, Are you OK? I told him, My eyes are crummy. He wrote, But are you OK? I told him, That's a very complicated question. He wrote, That's a very simple answer. I asked, Are you OK? He wrote, Some mornings I wake up feeling grateful.

This brings me back to the image of Kafka standing before a fish in the Berlin aquarium, a fish on which his gaze fell in a newly found peace after he decided not to eat animals. Kafka recognized that fish as a member of his invisible family- not as his equal, of course, but as another being that was his concern.

People who want to find a place of rest, want to find an integrated personality, sense of self, want fewer fractures in their lives.

What is being awake if not interpreting our dreams, or dreaming if not interpreting our wake?