To become young again would seem to me an appalling prospect. Youth is a kind of delirium, which can be cured, if it is ever cured at all, by years of painful treatment.

An improper mind is a perpetual feast.

It is through the cracks in our brains that ecstasy creeps in.

We need new friends; some of us are cannibals who have eaten their old friends up; others must have ever-renewed audiences before whom to re-enact the ideal version of their lives.

It is the dread of something happening, something unknown and dreadful, that makes us do anything to keep the flicker of talk from dying out.

Our names are labels, plainly printed on the bottled essence of our past behavior.

The great art of writing is the art of making people real to themselves with words.