How should I know why! I didn't invent human beings, Iggy.

Associate with the noblest people you can find; read the best books; live with the mighty; but learn to be happy alone.

Is love supposed to ruin you? It seems to me you shouldn't destroy yourself out of life for purposes of love--or what good is it?

There is only one way to defeat the enemy, and that is to write as well as one can. The best argument is an undeniably good book.

The challenge of modern freedom, or the combination of isolation and freedom which confronts you, is to make yourself up. The danger is that you may emerge from the process as a not-entirely-human creature. (Referenced in How to Lose Friends and Alienate People by Toby Young)

You can spend the entire second half of your life recovering from the mistakes of the first half.

What Homo sapien imagines, he may slowly convert himself to.