He walked out into the cold morning asking himself this heretical question: Can you start measuring a minute at any instant you wish?

Say a word, say a thousand to me on the telephone and I shall choose the wrong one to cling to as though you had said it after long deliberation when only I provoked it from you, I will cling to it from among a thousand, to be provoked and hurl it back with something I mean no more than you meant that, something for you to cling to and retreat clinging to.

...mementos of this world, in which the things worth being were so easily exchanged for the things worth having.

There is nothing more distressing or tiresome than a writer standing in front of an audience and reading his work.

What’s any artist, but the dregs of his work?

What's any artist, but the dregs of his work? the human shambles that follows it around. What's left of the man when the work's done but a shambles of apology.

We want someone to bring us the news.