Death, in the Eastern tradition, was only a passage. What wasn't clear ... was toward what place, what reality, that passage led.

Then he went out without touching anything and put his arm around Ingeborg, and like that, with their arms around each other, they returned to the village while the whole past of the universe fell on their heads.

When people read his books they have an uncontrollable desire to hang the author in the town square. I can’t think of a higher honor for a writer.

There's no place on earth with more dumb girls per square foot than a college in California.

One should read Borges more.

For a moment the two of them looked at each other, wordless, as if they were asleep and their dreams had converged on common ground, a place where sound was alien.

The diseased, anyway, are more interesting than the healthy. The words of the diseased, even those who can manage only a murmur, carry more weight than those of the healthy. Then, too, all healthy people will in the future know disease. That sense of time, ah, the diseased man’s sense of time, what treasure hidden in a desert cave. Then, too the diseased truly bite, whereas the healthy pretend to bite but really only snap at the air. Then, too, then, too, then, too.