The tiny madman in his padded cell.

Knowing you have something good to read before bed is among the most pleasurable of sensations.

And the rest is rust and stardust.

Do not be angry with the rain; it simply does not know how to fall upwards.

Mind you, sometimes the angels smoke, hiding it with their sleeves, and when the archangel comes, they throw the cigarettes away: that’s when you get shooting stars.

Curiosity is insubordination in its purest form.

Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins. My sin, my soul. Lo-lee-ta: the tip of the tongue taking a trip of three steps down the palate to tap, at three, on the teeth. Lo. Lee. Ta.

The writer's job is to get the main character up a tree, and then once they are up there, throw rocks at them.

There are aphorisms that, like airplanes, stay up only while they are in motion.

I think it is all a matter of love: the more you love a memory, the stronger and stranger it is.

Loneliness as a situation can be corrected, but as a state of mind it is an incurable illness.

How can I forget there's just one life & so much to do. Let me choose the best things to do & start to do.

Eating was easy. Thinking was hard.

Even when told to trust no one, the truth is, no one feels comfortable around people they cannot trust.

All times are treasure-able.

All attempts, then, for mortification of any lust, without an interest in Christ, are vain.

We of this age have discovered a shorter, and more prudent method to become scholars and wits, without the fatigue of reading or of thinking.

I sometimes talk about the making of a poem within the poem.

Goodness begins simply with the fact of life itself.

You never see the old austerity That was the essence of civility; Young people hereabouts, unbridled, now Just want.

One law for the lion and ox is oppression.