“I will take a new approach to death, because what is important about death is not the dead. Its the living. Those of us left behind.”

“I find the title How to Be Good. Curious, I open it up. I'm disappointed to find it's fiction.”

“there is something intriguing about knowing how things are going to turn out, but being constantly surprised about how they'll get there.”

“I'm completely out of control, and I can hear the beginnings of the chant, get/out/, but now that I'm not being touched maybe I can master it and I shut the world out: separating an orange into ski...”

“I let myself relax into the pattern of the recipe.”

“It preoccupies me until it's time to leave. It seems such the right expression of grief. I am sad, so in whatever small way I can, I will tear myself apart. They've taken what's on the inside and m...”

“As regards intellectual work it remains a fact, indeed, that great decisions in the realm of thought and momentous discoveries and solutions of problems are only possible to an individual, working ...”

“We are all alone, born alone, die alone, andin spite of True Romance magazineswe shall all someday look back on our lives and see that, in spite of our company, we were alone the whole way. I do no...”

“I never really understood the word loneliness. As far as I was concerned, I was in an orgy with the sky and the ocean, and with nature.”

“When I say it's you I like, I'm talking about that part of you that knows that life is far more than anything you can ever see or hear or touch. That deep part of you that allows you to stand for t...”

“You know Balbec so well - do you have friends in the area?'I have friends wherever there are companies of trees, wounded but not vanquished, which huddle together with touching obstinacy to implore...”

“Things that matter are not easy. Feelings of happiness are easy. Happiness is not. Flirting is easy. Love is not. Saying youre friends is easy. Being friends is not.”

“I guess Im too used to sitting in a small room and making words do a few things. I see enough of humanity at the racetracks, the supermarkets, gas stations, freeways, cafes, etc. This cant be helpe...”

“The final fact being that at the very bottom of his soul he was an outsider, and anti-social, and he accepted the fact inwardly, no matter how Bond-Streety he was on the outside. His isolation was ...”

“Introverts living under the Extroversion Ideal are like women in a mans world, discounted because of a trait that goes to the core of who they are. Extroversion is an enormously appealing personali...”