Since the insignificance of all things is our lot, we should not bear it as an affliction but learn to enjoy it.

There is nothing heavier than compassion. Not even one's own pain weighs so heavy as the pain one feels for someone, pain intensified by the imagination and prolonged by a hundred echos.

By giving the love act a name, if only an innocent little word like, "it," he paved the way for other words, words that would reflect physical love as in a set of mirrors.

Hate traps us by binding us too tightly to our adversary.

Love is a continual interrogation. I don’t know of a better definition of love.

The stupidity of people comes from having an answer for everything. The wisdom of the novel comes from having a question for everything. The novelist teaches the reader to comprehend the world as a question. There is wisdom and tolerance in that attitude. In a world built on sacrosanct certainties the novel is dead.

The beauty of New York is unintentional; it arose independent of human design, like a stalagmite cavern.