The more you learn, the less you fear. "Learn" not in the sense of academic study, but in the practical understanding of life.

We thought we were being mature when we were only being safe. We imagined we were being responsible but were only being cowardly. What we called realism turned out to be a way of avoiding things rather than facing them.

Whisky, I find, helps clarity of thought. And reduces pain. It has the additional virtue of making you drunk or, if taken in sufficient quantity, very drunk.

Pride makes us long for a solution to things – a solution, a purpose, a final cause; but the better telescopes become, the more stars appear.

May you be ordinary, as the poet once wished the new-born baby.

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

When you read a great book, you don't escape from life, you plunge deeper into it.