I refuse to accept as guilt the fact of my own existence.
I think it's undignified to read for the purposes of escape. After you grow up, you should start reading for other purposes
Stories pass the experienced world back and forth between them as a metaphor, until it is worn out. Only then do we realize that meaning is an act. We must repossess it, instant to instant in our lives.
Egnaro is a secret known to everyone but yourself. It is a country or a city to which you have never been; it is an unknown language. At the same time it is like being cuckolded, or plotted against. It is part of the universe of events which will never wholly reveal itself to you: a conspiracy the barest outline of which, once visible, will gall you forever.
Identity is not negotiable. An identity you have achieved by agreement is always a prison.
What is literature, and why do I try to write about it? I don’t know. Likewise, I don’t know why I go on living, most of the time. But this not knowing is precisely what I want to preserve. As readers, the closest way we can engage with a literary work is to protect its indeterminacy; to return ourselves and it to a place that precludes complete recognition. Really, when I’m reading, all I want is to stand amazed in front of an unknown object at odds with the world.
Writings like gambling. Unpredictable and sporadic successes make you more addicted, not less.
Three times I have been mistaken for a prohibition agent, but never had any trouble clearing myself.
Never do today what you can put off till tomorrow if tomorrow might improve the odds.
If there is a rumor in the air about you, you'd better treat it as you would a wasp: either ignore it or kill it with the first blow. Anything else will just stir it up.
I always loved movies and the cinema; we always used to go to see films as a family.