Perhaps the world progresses not by maturing, but by being in a permanent state of adolescence, of thrilled discovery.

WHORES. Necessary in the nineteenth century for the contraction of syphilis, without which no one could claim genius.

But that’s one advantage of fiction, you can speed up time.

To be stupid, and selfish, and to have good health are the three requirements for happiness.

You put together two people who have not been put together before; and sometimes the world is changed, sometimes not. They may crash and burn, or burn and crash. But sometimes, something new is made, and then the world is changed. Together, in that first exaltation, that first roaring sense of uplift, they are greater than their two separate selves. Together, they see further, and they see more clearly.

Time...give us enough time and our best-supported decisions will seem wobbly, our certainties whimsical.

What is taken away is greater than the sum of what was there. This may not be mathematically possible; but it is emotionally possible.