Religion is probably, after sex, the second oldest resource which human beings have available to them for blowing their minds.

I was fascinated by quotations and lists. And then I noticed that other people were fascinated by quotations and lists: people as different as Borges and Walter Benjamin, Novalis and Godard.

Using quotations was at first quite spontaneous for me, but then this use became strengthened through reflection. But originally this practice came out of temperament.

The camera makes everyone a tourist in other people's reality, and eventually in one's own.

Loeb has been doing wonderfully patient work, exploring the American conscience from the inside. I regard him as something of a national treasure.

The best emotions to write out of are anger and fear or dread. The least energizing emotion to write out of is admiration. It is very difficult to write out of because the basic feeling that goes with admiration is a passive contemplative mood.

Marriage is a sort of tacit hunting in couples. The world all in couples, each couple in its own little house, watching its own little interests and stewing in its own little privacy - it's the most repulsive thing in the world. One's got to get rid of the exclusiveness of married love.