To own a certain book - and to choose it without help - is to define yourself.

Grief seems at first to destroy not just all patterns, but also to destroy a belief that a pattern exists.

I had wanted life not to bother me too much, and had succeeded - and how pitiful that was.

Sometimes I think the purpose of life is to reconcile us to its eventual loss by wearing us down, by proving, however long it takes, that life isn't all it's cracked up to be.

Loving humanity means as much, and as little, as loving raindrops, or loving the Milky Way. You say that you love humanity? Are you sure you aren’t treating yourself to easy self-congratulation, seeking approval, making certain you’re on the right side?

That's one of the central problems of history, isn't it, sir? The question of subjective versus objective interpretation, the fact that we need to know the history of the historian in order to understand the version that is being put in front of us.

Do we tend to recall the most important parts of a novel or those that speak most directly to us, the truest lines or the flashiest ones?