The surest defense against Evil is extreme individualism, originality of thinking, whimsicality, even - if you will - eccentricity. That is, something that can't be feigned, faked, imitated; something even a seasoned imposter couldn't be happy with.

I'm neither Catholic not Protestant. Protestant sounds good but I don't think I am.

Language and, presumably, literature are more ancient and inevitable, more durable than any form of social organization. The revulsion, irony, or indifference often expressed by literature toward the state is essentially the reaction of the permanent-better yet, the infinite-against the temporary, against the finite.

Boredom is your window on the properties of time that one tends to ignore to the likely peril of one's mental equilibrium. It is your window on time's infinity. Once this window opens, don't try to shut it; on the contrary, throw it wide open.

Life—the way it really is—is a battle not between good and bad, but between bad and worse

I'm not trying to be ridiculous or funny, but it was rather pleasant to find yourself in isolation, in solitary.

I grew up in the sort of cultural milieu that always regarded conversations about the political discourse as tremendously low-brow.