'We live' writes Pursewarden somewhere 'lives based upon selected fictions. Our view of reality is conditioned by our position in space and time — not by our personalities as we like to think. Thus every interpretation oа reality is based upon a unique position. Two paces east or west and the whole picture is changed.

Truth is a woman. That is why it is enigmatic.

The realisation of one's own death is the point at which one becomes adult.

I see artists as a great battalion moving through paint, words, music towards cosmological interpretation.

There is no pain compared to that of loving a woman who makes her body accessible to one and yet who is incapable of delivering her true self -- because she does not know where to find it.

I suppose the secret of his success is in his tremendous idleness which almost approaches the supernatural.

Like all young men I set out to be a genius, but mercifully laughter intervened.