Boredom is the conviction that you can't change ... the shriek of unused capacities.

We are all such accidents. We do not make up history and culture. We simply appear, not by our own choice. We make what we can of our condition with the means available. We must accept the mixture as we find it - the impurity of it, the tragedy of it, the hope of it.

And what about all the good I have in my heart - does it mean anything?

Alternatives, and particularly desirable alternatives, grow only on imaginary trees.

I must play the instrument I've got.

I think that art has something to do with an arrest of attention in the midst of distraction.

I blame myself for not often enough seeing the extraordinary in the ordinary. Somewhere in his journals, Dostoyevky remarks that a writer can begin anywhere, at the most commonplace thing, scratch around in it long enough, pry and dig away long enough, and lo!, soon he will hit upon the marvelous.