There’s always a story that people are telling about themselves, and sometimes you can get them to tell it ever so slightly differently.

But what are they?” Annie asked.“An omphalos, probably, ” said Jacob.“A what, dear?” Melinda asked.“A bellybutton of the world.”“I didn’t know it had one.

– I’m going to be a writer, he reminded Milo.– And you won’t need literature?– I’ll write my own.

By its nature a relationship was not an accomplishment. It was just a connection that happened to exist, for as long as it did exist.

Since he had given up men he had taken up geography. He visited a new sight or a new neighborhood nearly every weekend.

He was in the flow of time now. He was in a story.

It is perhaps necessary for something dear to be lost.”“Why?”“Perhaps it is necessary to the making of a story. A story after all is a way of remembering love.

It’s a question of wanting to know how the story turns out. And one can only know that about one story, ever.

A year ago he had been in America. Two years ago he had been straight. Tonight he was underground, with the remains of the bogey man, lit by the torches of the children who had killed him.

I suppose it does come with a certain responsibility.”“What does?” asked Annie.“The magnificence of my person.”“Gah.

Like capitalism, ” Carl suggested. “‘We’ll give you so much pleasure, you’ll never want to try another socioeconomic system.

And it seemed increasingly obvious that the world would have to topple if he was to attain the glory that was rightfully his. They were consubstantial: glory and the capsized world.

Sometimes words aren't necessary.

When his enthusiasm goes he's through as a player.

Art is not the application of a canon of beauty but what the instinct and the brain can conceive beyond any canon. When we love a woman we don't start measuring her limbs.

The Mandrake is the "Tree of Knowledge" and the burning love ignited by its pleasure is the origin of the human race

Sometimes we don't know how afraid we are until we've reached a strange door and we don't know what will be on the other side.

People love you when you're successful, but if you're not, who really cares about you?

So I want to ask you a hypothetical question. My favorite kind. Next to rhetorical ones. I can nap equally well through either kind.

You could become internationally famous - you're Gemini, and according to antique authority have a literary talent, which of course your letters prove.

...wisdom is in large part the knowledge of how to avoid doing dumb things, and thus grows globally as a function of the published inventory of stupid mistakes.