I’m pleased by anything in myself that strikes me as not myself.

God pity the poor novelist.

I had thought that words were instruments of precision. Now I know that they devour the world, leaving nothing in its place.

All words are masks and the lovelier they are, the more they are meant to conceal.

Stories, like conjuring tricks, are invented because history is inadequate for our dreams.

In the long dusks of summer we walked the suburban streets through scents of maple and cut grass, waiting for something to happen.

Perhaps sound is only an insanity of silence, a mad gibber of empty space grown fearful of listening to itself and hearing nothing.

I saw that I was in danger of becoming ordinary, and I understood that from now on I would have to be vigilant.

His ambition was to insert his dreams into the world, and if they were the wrong dreams, then he would dream them in solitude.

We know nothing. Absolutely nothing.

Ennui had more distractions far more amusing than the automatons of a watchmaker in Mühlenberg.

She did not find these riches (of fulfillment). They were a gift from God.

If you discovered something that made you tighten inside, you had better try to learn more about it.

There will always be a door to the light.

All cats are gray in the dark.

It's fashionable to be indifferent to other people's suffering

They are not happy out there. Take a walk today and look at how many people smile. Look at how troubled they are, unhappy, stressed out. Go through the ghetto or go through Beverly Hills.

You're always going to be more judgmental about your own performance than anyone else.

I like to employ the power of no. We all want to say yes, because with yes comes so much opportunity, but with the power of no comes focus and engagement.

Perhaps the single most dramatic example of this phenomenon of software eating a traditional business is the suicide of Borders and corresponding rise of Amazon

Music stops you from thinking.