I am sad for the dead and I am sad for the livingbut not for my 5 cats

Now something so sad has hold of us that the breath leaves and we can't even cry.

yes, Wagner and the storm intermix with the wine as nights like this run up my wrists and up into my head and back down into the gut

having nothing to struggleagainstthey have nothing to strugglefor.

the gods play nofavorites.

the gods seldomgivebut so quicklytake.

she slammed the door andwas gone.I looked at the closed doorand at the doorknoband strangelyI didn't feelalone.

the worst thing, " he told me, "is bitterness, people end up sobitter.

I see a brightportionunder the overhead lightthat shades intodarknessand then into darkerdarknessand I can't see beyond that.

I believe that to be the world's greatest livingwriterthere must be somethingterribly wrong with you.I don't even want to be the world's greatestdead writer.just being dead would be fairenough.

I paid, got up, walkedto the door, openedit.I heard the mansay, "that guy'snuts."out on the street Iwalked northfeelingcuriouslyhonored.

I do not mean, of course, that we can always accurately express our conscious thoughts with Proustian accuracy. Consciousness overflows language: we perceive vastly more than we can describe.

If they laugh at you for being true to yourself, laugh back at them for not knowing how great it feels to be in love with one's positive self.

If one is searching for the cause of brutality in mankind, it would do well to remember that civilization is a great and vast machine.

Practical prayer is harder on the soles of your shoes than on the knees of your trousers.

There is no diplomacy like silence.

Freedom is having real choice. This offers a limited amount of choices. This is participating in a very imperfect system that we're desperately hanging onto, that we don't want to see further eroded.

Memorial services are the cocktail parties of the geriatric set.

You taught me to be nice, so nice that now I am so full of niceness, I have no sense of right and wrong, no outrage, no passion.

Passion makes the will lord of the reason.