Sex annihilates identity, and the space given to sex in contemporary novels is an avowal of the absence of character.

Labor is work that leaves no trace behind it when it is finished.

We all live in suspense, from day to day, from hour to hour; in other words, we are the hero of our own story.

Is it really so difficult to tell a good action from a bad one? I think one usually knows right away or a moment afterward, in a horrid flash of regret.

...the tourist Venice is Venice.

Once the state is looked upon as the source of rights, rather than their bound protector, freedom becomes conditional on the pleasure of the state.

The happy ending is our national belief.