Kafka didn't save me. He just told me I was drowning.

Gone. The saddest word in the language. In any language.

The 'deep' civic function of the humanities . . . is something understood very well by totalitarian societies, which tend to keep close tabs on them, and to circumscribe them in direct proportion to how stringently the population is controlled.

Consider it: Who but God could have dreamed a tale so absurd and so heartless?

Life isn't simple. Literature shouldn't be either.

Maybe I lacked coping skills. Maybe I was weak. I cared for people for no better reason than they seemed to care for me, acknowledge me. It didn’t seem so dangerous at the time.

It’s a race between your foolishness and your allotted days. Good luck.