Some days in late August at home are like this, the air thin and eager like this, with something in it sad and nostalgic and familiar.

The air brightened, the running shadow patches were now the obverse, and it seemed to him that the fact that the day was clearing was another cunning stroke on the part of the foe, the fresh battle toward which he was carrying ancient wounds.

It is my ambition to be, as a private individual, abolished and voided from history, leaving it markless.

People to whom sin is just a matter of words, to them salvation is just words too.

In a strange room you must empty yourself for sleep. And before you are emptied for sleep, what are you. And when you are emptied for sleep, what are you. And when you are emptied for sleep you are not. And when you are filled with sleep, you never were. I don't know what I am. I don't know if I am or not.

Tomorrow night is nothing but one long sleepless wrestle with yesterday's omissions and regrets.

It is my ambition to be, as a private individual, abolished and voided from history, leaving it markless, no refuse save the printed books. [] It is my aim, and every effort bent, that the sum and history of my life, which in the same sentence is my obit and epitaph too, shall be them both: he made the books and he died.