We are stimulated to emotional response, not by works that confirm our sense of the world, but by works that challenge it.

I learned you don't discover the evidence of any cause in its result.

Evil isn't a cosmological riddle, only just selfish human behavior.

We come away from the tragedies of [William] Shakespeare with a profound sense of having encountered reality in its most pristine form - yet the art-work is elaborately artificial, the very genre of tragedy in poetry an anti-naturalist perspective.

If you explore beneath shyness or party chit-chat, you can sometimes turn a dull exchange into an intriguing one. I've found this to be particularly true in the case of professors or intellectuals, who are full of fascinating information, but need encouragement before they'll divulge it.

I do what I want to do. It was a brash statement of(her)girlhood. Now she was an adult, the boast seemed quaint. For rarely do you know what you want. Even after you've done it you can't say clearly if that was what you'd wanted or just something that happened to you, like weather.

... such speculation is like staring into the hot white sun. you know the sun is there but you can't see a thing.