I think we all have a little bit of that beautiful madness that keeps us walking when everything around us is so insanely sane.

All profound distraction opens certain doors. You have to allow yourself to be distracted when you are unable to concentrate.

I realized that searching was my symbol, the emblem of those who go out at night with nothing in mind, the motives of a destroyer of compasses.

I think it is vanity to want to put into a story anything but the story itself.

Only by living absurdly is it possible to break out of this infinite absurdity.

We know that attention acts as a lightning rod. Merely by concentrating on something one causes endless analogies to collect around it, even penetrate the boundaries of the subject itself: an experience that we call coincidence, serendipity – the terminology is extensive. My experience has been that in these circular travels what is really significant surrounds a central absence, an absence that, paradoxically, is the text being written or to be written.

The novel wins by points, the short story by knockout.