Insomniac is an impassioned work-an inspired amalgam of academic and first-hand research, memoir, analysis, and the kind of obsessive brooding we associate with the insomniac state. Much here is fascinating, and much is upsetting; here is a cri de coeur from a lifetime insomniac that is sure to appeal to the vast army of fellow insomniacs the world over.

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

What does it mean to be born? After we die, will it be the same thing as it was before we were born? Or a different kind of nothingness? Because there might be knowledge then. Memory.

Shakespeare would seem to have been a person for whom the human voice/personality in all its splendid idiosyncrasy was absolutely enthralling.

The folly of war is that it can have no natural end except in the extinction an entire people.

It's where we go, and what we do when we get there, that tells us who we really are.

Loneliness is like starvation: you don't realize how hungry you are until you begin to eat.