the process of building a self and its works is always too slow. One is always in arrears to oneself.

the appetite for thinking must be regulated, as all sensible people know, for it may stifle one's life.

Compassion is an unstable emotion. It needs to be translated into action, or it withers.

The ratio of authentic literature to trash in pornography may be somewhat lower than the ratio of novels of genuine literary meritto the entire volume of sub-literary fiction produced for mass taste. But it is probably not lower than, for instance, that of another somewhat shady sub-genre with a few first-rate books to its credit, science fiction.

Death is unbearable unless you can get beyond the I.

Remember when you hear yourself saying one day that you don't have time anymore to read or listen to music or look at paintings or go to the movies or do whatever feeds your head now. Then you're getting old. That means they got you, after all.

Read a lot. Expect something big, something exalting or deepening from a book. No book is worth reading that isn't worth re-reading.