I lived in books more than I lived anywhere else.

I went away in my head, into a book. That was where I went whenever real life was too hard or too inflexible.

A story only matters, I suspect, to the extent that the people in the story change.

But there was a kitten on my pillow, and it was purring in my face and vibrating gently with every purr, and, very soon, I slept.

Books were safer than other people anyway.

Nobody looks like what they really are on the inside. You don’t. I don’t. People are much more complicated than that. It’s true of everybody.

I make art, sometimes I make true art, and sometimes it fills the empty places in my life. Some of them. Not all.

Words save our lives, sometimes.

You get on with your own life. Lettie gave it to you. You just have to grow up and try and be worth it.

They were not my friends, after all. They were just the people I went to school with.

Different people remember things differently, and you'll not get any two people to remember anything the same, whether they were there or not.

For, indeed, everything about is marvelous, and wherever a man turns his gaze he sees the Godhead of the Word and is smitten with awe.

When he kissed me, it was like he was reaching for my soul.

Avoid jealously for this destroys good deeds as fire destroys wood.

I was satisfied with haiku until I met you, but now I want a Russian novel, a 50-page description of you sleeping.

A nation that hates politics will not long survive as a democracy.

There are no chaste minds. Minds copulate wherever they meet.

Everything at a distance turns into poetry; distant mountains, distant people, distant events; all become Romantic.

Our attitude in the face of life's challenges determines our suffering or our freedom.

It is difficult to be a good noncommissioned officer. If it had been easy, they would have given it to the officer corps.

In chess, you should be as cool as a cucumber.