Everyone loathes his own country and countrymen if he is any sort of artist.

I have decided to leave Clea’s last letter un-answered. I no longer wish to coerce anyone, to make promises, to think of life in terms of compacts, resolutions, covenants. It will be up to Clea to interpret my silence according to her own needs and desires, to come to me if she has need or not, as the case may be. Does not everything depend on our interpretation of the silence around us?

Religion is simply art bastardized out of all recognition.

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.

Frost in January minus 20 for a week. Dead birds frozen on the branch—they fall with the first thaw like ripe fruit—death-ripened. We shall all end like them—just a stain in the snow.

Science is the poetry of the intellect and poetry the science of the heart's affections.

Life is more complicated than we think, yet far simpler than anyone dares to imagine