Adultery is a most conventional way to rise above the conventional.

if a violin string could ache, i would be that string.

Literature is invention. Fiction is fiction. To call a story a true story is an insult to both art and truth.

A wise reader reads the book of genius not with his heart, not so much with his brain, but with his spine. It is there that occurs the telltale tingle.

How small the cosmos (a kangaroo's pouch would hold it), how paltry and puny in comparison to human consciousness, to a single individual recollection, and its expression in words!

Solitude is the playfield of Satan.

Even while writing his book, he had become painfully aware how little he knew his own planet while attempting to piece together another one from jagged bits filched from deranged brains.