At a very early stage of the novel's development I get this urge to collect bits of straw and fluff, and to eat pebbles. Nobody will ever discover how clearly a bird visualizes, or if it visualizes at all, the future nest and the eggs in it.

for better or worse, it is the commentator who has the last word.

Only one letter divides the comic from the cosmic.

I don't want an elderly gentleman from Vienna with an umbrella inflicting his dreams upon me.

Some might think that the creativity, imagination, and flights of fancy that give my life meaning are insanity.

I see nothing for the treatment of my misery but the melancholy and very local palliative of articulate art.

I don't belong to any club or group. I don't fish, cook, dance, endorse books, sign books, co-sign declarations, eat oysters, get drunk, go to church, go to analysts, or take part in demonstrations.