Alexander Theroux

“Pedantry. The delight in living. Brio. The chance to act, to mime, to mock, to mimic.”

“...we are willing to lose ourselves in another as we exchange fates with one whom we love but on whom our heart is nevertheless impaled.”

“The best reason for disbelieving in God is that he never gave us enough time in life to pursue enough knowledge to find sufficient truth.”

“The complexity of language, he thought to himself, lies not in its subject matter but in our knotted understanding.”

“The man who has faith in logic is always cuckolded by reality.”

“Faculty Meetings are held whenever the need to show off is combinedwith the imperative of accomplishing nothing.”

“Ordinary persons, he said, smiling, found no differences between men. The artist found them all.”

“If on a friend’s bookshelfYou cannot find Joyce or SterneCervantes, Rabelais, or Burton,You are in danger, face the fact,So kick him first or punch him hardAnd from him hide behind a curtain.”

“. . . it is called 'camel case' or 'intercapping' -- of writing small letters next to large in the same word, as in such popular significations as iPod, eBay, iTunes, etc. which few would argue is a distinct sign of illiteracy.”

“September: it was the most beautiful of words, he’d always felt, evoking orange-flowers, swallows, and regret.”

“I thought... their elegance... lies not so much in their clothes as in their bodies, and their bodies have received it, and continue to unceasingly receive it, from their souls, which are just like yours, lovely Simonetta.”

“Will I have to use a dictionary to read your book?" asked Mrs. Dodypol. "It depends," says I, "how much you used the dictionary before you read it.”