For I do not exist: there exist but the thousands of mirrors that reflect me.

My answer to your question'Does the writer have a social responsibility?' is NO.You owe me ten cents, sir.

There is the first satisfaction of arranging it on a bit of paper; after many, many false tries, false moves, finally you have the sentence you recognize as the one you are looking for.

The compensation for a death sentence is the knowledge of the exact hour when one is to die. A great luxury, but one that is well earned.

Between the wolf in the tall grass and the wolf in the tall story there is a shimmering go-between. That go-between, that prism, is the art of literature.

Pnin slowly walked under solemn pines. The sky was dying. He did not believe in an autocratic God. He did believe, dimly, in a democracy of ghosts. The souls of the dead, perhaps, formed committees, and these, in continuous session, attended the destinies of the quick.

Devices which in some curious new way imitate nature are attractive to simple minds.