“As we grow older, our bodies get shorter and our anecdotes longer.”

“You aren't really old until nothing is fun enough to make you forget the weather.”

“Discussion is an exchange of knowledge an argument an exchange of ignorance.”

“Great art is never produced for its own sake. It is too difficult to be worth the effort.”

“If you count all your assets you always show a profit.”

“There are glimpses of heaven to us in every act, or thought, or word, that raises us above ourselves.”

“They had killed themselves over our dying forests, over manatees maimed by propellers as they surfaced to drink from garden hoses; they had killed themselves at the sight of used tires stacked high...”

“The world seemed to shimmer a little at the edges.”

“If we cannot accept the importance of the world, which considers itself important, if in the midst of that world our laughter finds no echo, we have but one choice: to take the world as a whole and...”

“No more war! Never again war! If you wish to be brothers, drop your weapons.”

“If you wish to be loved, show more of your faults than your virtues.”

“I wish it, I command it. Let my will take the place of a reason.”

“All the most powerful emotions come from chaos -fear,anger,love- especially love. Love is chaos itself. Think about it! Love makes no sense. It shakes you up and spins you around. And then, eventua...”

“If for a moment you are inclined to regard these taluses as mere draggled, chaotic dumps, climb to the top of one of them, and run down without any haggling, puttering hesitation, boldly jumping fr...”

“She imagines him imagining her. This is her salvation.In spirit she walks the city, traces its labyrinths, its dingy mazes: each assignation, each rendezvous, each door and stair and bed. What he s...”