Memories of the past are not memories of facts but memories of your imaginings of the facts.
Philip Roth--nor had I understood til then how the shameless vanity of utter fools can so strongly determine the fate of others
Philip RothThe secret to living in the rush of the world with a minimum of pain is to get as many people as possible to string along with your delusions; the trick to living alone up here, away from all agitating entanglements, allurements, and expectations, apart especially from one's own intensity, is to organize the silence, to think of its mountaintop plenitude as capital, silence as wealth exponentially increasing. The encircling silence as your chosen source of advantage and your only intimate.
Philip Roth