He was doing missionary work. But from the outset he had little success in convincing his charges of their responsibility for a sin committed at the beginning of creation, one which, as they understood it, they were ready and capable (indeed, they carried charms to assure it) of duplicating themselves. He did no better convincing them that a man had died on a tree to save them all: an act which one old Indian, if Gwyon had translated correctly, regarded as "rank presumption".

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?

We're comic. We're all comics. We live in a comic time. And the worse it gets the more comic we are.

Why do you treat me as they do, as though I were exactly what I want to be. Why do we treat people that way?

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

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.