..the writer’s obsession – the desire to know and communicate, or, rather, to know everything so as to communicate with the greatest degree of precision.

I realised the amazing power of literature and of the human imagination generally: to make the dead live and to stop the living from dying.

The world is like an enormous set of scales. When evil begins to outweigh good, angels cram themselves in on the lighter side. You can't see them, but there they are, restoring the balance.

...there is little that comes so close to death as fulfilled love.

If we lose our memory, we lose ourselves. Forgetting is one of the symptoms of death. Without memory we cease to be human beings.

To destroy is easier than to create, and that is why so many people are ready to demonstrate against what they reject. But what would they say if one asked them what they wanted instead?

Justice was revenge wrapping itself in a cloak of high principle.

Man is afraid to attain what he longs for, just as subconsciously he longs for what he is afraid of.

A picture was a motionless record of motion. An arrested representation of life. A picture was the kiss of death pretending to possess immutability.

Graveyards remind us of the vanity of all human endeavour.

Animals have one thing that puts them way ahead of people: they don't dissemble, and you don't have to pretend in front of them.

Your problems is that you think you have time.

Books should make somebody look at how they feel, be honest with themselves.

As soon as we find ourselves working at being indispensable, rigging up a pattern of vulnerability in our loved ones, we know that our love has taken the socially sanctioned form of egotism.

There are times when I catch myself believing that there is such a thing as something; which is separate from something else.

Fire, fear, foes! Awake!

Death ready stands to interpose his dart.

I think people think that labels can get you features more than you can get your own. I just doesn't work like that.

But I knew Nick. He was too ugly to die.

I don’t wanna die, man. They’re not playing. Have you seen how many of them are out there? One just took a shot at me, so unlike you morons, I’m hiding. Hiding is nice. (Vik)

Profound hearts, wise minds, take life as God makes it; it is a long trial, and unintelligible preparation for the unknown destiny.