The ordinary-sized stuff which is our lives, the things people write poetry about—clouds—daffodils—waterfalls—what happens in a cup of coffee when the cream goes in—these things are full of mystery, as mysterious to us as the heavens were to the Greeks.

It is better of course to know useless things than to know nothing.

An artist is the magician put among men to gratify - capriciously - their urge for immortality.

Whatever became of the moment when one first knew about death? There must have been one. A moment. In childhood. When it first occurred to you that you don’t go on forever. It must have been shattering, stamped into one’s memory. And yet, I can’t remember it.

Every exit is an entry somewhere else.

Biography is the mesh through which real life escapes.

We give advice by the bucket, but take it by the grain.