The only truly intersting side of the matter was the intimate design of the injury, the fact that it was so penetrating, custom-made exactly to your measure. It's fascinating that hatred should be so personal as to be almost loving. The knife and the wound aching for each other.

Also, he was smoking a cigar, and when a man is smoking a cigar, wearing a hat, he has an advantage; it is harder to find out how he feels.

The body, she says, is subject to the force of gravity. But the soul is ruled by levity, pure.

...chaos doesn't run the whole show.

I seem to have the blind self-acceptance of the eccentric who can't conceive that his eccentricities are not clearly understood.

My face too blind, my mind too limited, my instincts too narrow. But this intensity, doesn't it mean anything?

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)