If you think this Universe is bad, you should see some of the others.

Writing is a lonely way of life. You shut yourself up in your study and work and work.

It is futile to try to make the universe add up. But I guess we must go on anyhow.

Activity does not necessarily mean life. Quasars are active. And a monk meditating is not inanimate.

How much of what we call 'reality' is actually out there or rather within our own head?

The inanity of her remark infuriated him. 'Good grief don't you understand Janet? At this point I'm thoroughly delusional. I'm as mentally ill as it's possible to be. It's incredible that I can communicate with you at all. It's a credit to my ego-strength that I'm not at this point totally autistic.

Why does a man cry? he wondered. Not like a woman; not for that. Not for sentiment. A man cries over the loss of something, something alive. A man can cry over a sick animal that he knows won't make it. The death of a child: a man can cry for that. But not because things are sad. A man, he thought, cries not for the future or the past but for the present.