Archives - July 2011

I've seen a look in dogs' eyes, a quickly vanishing look of amazed
contempt, and I am convinced that basically dogs think humans are
nuts.

I am learning all the time. The tombstone will be my diploma.

Those who won our independence believed liberty to be the secret of
happiness and courage to be the secret of liberty.

I can be changed by what happens to me, but I refuse to be reduced
by it.

We write to taste life twice, in the moment and in
retrospect.

Originality is the fine art of remembering what you hear but
forgetting where you heard it.

I do things like get in a taxi and say, "The library, and step on
it"

He that is good for making excuses is seldom good for anything
else.

You're an interesting species. An interesting mix. You're capable
of such beautiful dreams, and such horrible nightmares. You feel so
lost, so cut off, so alone, only you're not. See, in all our
searching, the only thing we've found that makes the emptiness
bearable, is each other.

Every life has a measure of sorrow, and sometimes this is what
awakens us.

Consistency is contrary to nature, contrary to life. The only
completely consistent people are dead.

Some people never go crazy. What truly horrible lives they must lead.

To be left alone is the most precious thing one can ask of the modern world.

If you're skating on thin ice, you might as well dance.

I put my book down and for an instant felt
a perfect balance between waking and dreams.
But when the plane touched concrete, then
assiduously circled the airport's labyrinth,
I once again knew nothing.

We all live with the objective of being happy; our lives are all
different and yet the same.

I don't want to give any advice to a 19-year-old, because I want a
19-year-old to make mistakes and learn from them. Make mistakes,
make mistakes, make mistakes. Just make sure they're your
mistakes.

That is my major preoccupation: memory, the kingdom of memory. I
want to protect and enrich that kingdom, glorify that kingdom and
serve it.

One day I will find the right words, and they will be simple.

The reason I talk to myself is because I'm the only one whose
answers I accept.

We search for patterns, you see, only to find where the patterns
break. And it's there, in that fissure, that we pitch our tents and
wait.

The most sophisticated people I know --- inside they are all
children.

The greatest calling of all is to have a literary life.

That is my problem with life, I rush through it, like I'm being
chased. Even things whose whole point is slowness, like drinking
relaxing tea. When I drink relaxing tea I suck it down as if I'm in
a contest for who can drink relaxing tea the quickest.

Reading is a conversation. All books talk. But a good book listens
as well.

I have an everyday religion that works for me. Love yourself first,
and everything else falls into line.

There is no such thing as an empty space or an empty time. There is
always something to see, something to hear. In fact, try as we may
to make a silence, we cannot.

Nothing ever begins. There is no first moment; no single word or
place from which this or any other story springs.

A study in the Washington Post says that women have better
verbal skills than men. I just want to say to the authors of that
study: "Duh."

It's not the size of the dog in the fight, it's the size of the
fight in the dog.