do what only a true artist can do ... pounce upon the forgotten butterfly of revelation

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.

Man persists in waywardness. If one institution fails [he says], try another—anything but God’s plan.

Tell me what's emotion… and what's like… both words what do they mean?

Things that matter in this life can not be bought. Friends, truth, and a passion for life.

The great obstacle to discovering the shape of the earth, the continents, and the oceans was not ignorance, but the illusion of knowledge.

We see the moon, don't we? So it's our eye. Animals see us, don't they? So we're their animals.

We mustn't be stiff and stand-off, you know. We must be thoroughly democratic, and patronize everybody without distinction of class.

Fallout shelters are like bell-bottoms. They've gone in and out of favor.

I shall really be very unhappy unless you give me the sort of courage that makes one forget he is afraid.

If I stopped having passion, I'd be done.

But who shall parcel out His intellect by geometric rules, Split like a province into round and square?