To the extent that this world surrenders its richness and diversity, it surrenders its poetry; to the extent that it relinquishes its capacity to surprise, it relinquishes its music; to the extent that it loses its ability to tolerate ridiculous and even dangerous exceptions, it loses its grace.

The unhappy person resents it when you try to cheer him up, because that means he has to stop dwelling on himself and start paying attention to the universe. Unhappiness is the ultimate form of self-indulgence. When you're unhappy, you get to pay a lot of attention to yourself. You get to take yourself oh so very seriously.

Our world isn't made of earth, air and water or even molecules and atoms; our world is made of language.

If the novelist isn't surprised by where his book ends up, he or she probably hasn't written anything worth remembering.

Philosophers have argued for centuries about how many angels can dance on the head of a pin, but materialists have known all along that it depends on whether they are jitterbugging or dancing cheek to cheek.

Sometimes one gets the feeling that life still thinks it's living in Paris in the '30s.

All depression has its roots in self-pity, and all self-pity is rooted in people taking themselves too seriously.