I don't think he was knowable. I mean, when most people talk about knowing somebody a lot or a little, they're talking about the secrets they've been told or haven't been told. They're talking about intimate things, family things, love things," that nice old lady said to me. "Mr. Hoenikker had all those things in his life, the way every living person has to, but they weren't the main things with him.

Just because something feels better than anything else, that doesn't mean it's good for you.

all that has changed, in my opinion, is that, thanks to television, we can hide a great depression. we may even be hiding a third world war

Every character should want something, even if it is only a glass of water.

Contemplating a purported work of art is a social activity. Either you have a rewarding time, or you don't. You don't have to say why afterward. You don't have to say anything.

If a person survives an ordinary span of sixty years or more, there is every chance that his or her life as a shapely story has ended and all that remains to be experienced is epilogue. Life is not over, but the story is.

Dance, even if you have nowhere to do it but the living room in your fortified compound.