So if hunger provokes wailing and wailing brings the breast; if the breast permits sucking and milk suggests its swallow; if swallowing issues in sleep and stomachy comfort, then need, ache, message, object, act, and satisfaction are soon associated like charms on a chain; shortly our wants begin to envision the things which well reduce them, and the organism is finally said to wish.

When book and reader's furrowed brow meet, it isn't always the book that's stupid.

Getting even is one reason for writing.

If you were a fully realized person-whatever the hell that would be-you wouldn't fool around writing books.

It’s not the word made flesh we want in writing, in poetry and fiction, but the flesh made word

The things that stayed were things that didn't matter except they stayed, night and day, all seasons the same, and were peaceful to a fault and boded no ill but thought well enough of themselves to repeat their presences.

The world of conceptualized ideas is quite wonderful, even when it's - like Aristotle's Physics - an outmoded book. The physics is not true. But the reasoning is dazzling.