Literature is the human activity that make the fullest and most precise account of variousness, possibility, complexity, and difficulty.

Reasons for not keeping a notebook: 1) the ambiguity of the reader--it is never quite oneself. 2) I usually hate the sight of my handwriting--it lives too much and I dislike its life--I mean by "lives," of course, betrays too much!

In the American Metaphysical, reality is always material reality, hard, resistant, unformed, impenetrable, and unpleasant.

We are all ill; but even a universal sickness implies an idea of health.

Literature is the human activity that make the fullest and most precise account of variousness, possibility, complexity, and difficulty.

At the bottom of at least popular Marxism there has always been a kind of disgust with humanity as it is and a perfect faith in humanity as it is to be.

Being a Jew is like walking in the wind or swimming: you are touched at all points and conscious everywhere.