I do insist on making what I hope is sense so there's always a coherent narrative or argument that the reader can follow.

Nothing in the universe can travel at the speed of light, they say, forgetful of the shadow's speed.

For a Jewish Puritan of the middle class, the novel is serious, the novel is work, the novel is conscientious application why, the novel is practically the retail business all over again.

A teacher is a person who never says anything once.

Write what you know. That should leave you with a lot of free time.

I would talk in iambic pentameter if it were easier.

I like all my children, even the squat and ugly ones.

Absolute power corrupts absolutely; and if you surrender your personal responsibility to a government which promises to take care of you, they will only take care of themselves.

When Robert Frost was alive, I was known as the other new England poet, which is to be barely known at all.

Robert Frost had always said you mustn't think of the last line first, or it's only a fake poem, not a real one. I'm inclined to agree.

[T]eaching has been for me an education (Lord knows what it has been for my students).

Retiring is a strange word. I'm 27 years old. I've still got stuff to do.

Things always look better in the morning.

If wisdom in government eludes us, perhaps courage could substitute-the moral courage to terminate mistakes.

Things are revealed through the memories we have of them. Remembering a thing means seeing it only then for the first time.

Progress is possible only if we train ourselves to think about programs without thinking of them as pieces of executable code.

We don't have a revolution, and we don't have the time for evolution, where does it come from? It must come from some kind of shared experience that everybody agrees with.

Drama often obscures the real issues

The true measure of life is not length, but honesty.

I haven't left a mark on the world, but is that so bad? Considering how deeply the world has marked me?

I was trying to develop a notion of "non-dialectical negativity" as part of a concept of extinction that would transform the understanding of death and time elaborated in phenomenology.