[On marriage:] It is an institution committed to the dulling of the feelings.

It is not the position, but the disposition.

The point is to get a good rhythm, to make it mindless, almost as a daydream. To walk like breathing. To make it what the body wants, what the air wants, what time wants.

That's what a community is: taking for granted certain assumptions, not having to start from zero every time. This is no longer true.

One of the author's most ancient roles is to call the community to account for its hypocrisies and bad faith.

In the greatest art, one is always aware of things that cannot be said. . .of the contradiction between expression and the presence of the inexpressible. Stylistic devices are also techniques of avoidance. The most potent elements of a work of art are, often, its silences.

When you see your 40-page essay turned into a "hot tip" in one paragraph in Newsweek, you get anxious about the way your writing has been used.