“I leaf through the ancient philosophers and find my newest discoveries there.”

“But that woman is an encyclopedia!Of all vices, ancient and modern, and terribly interesting to leaf through!”

“Their [philosophers] thinking is, in fact, far less a discovery than a re-recognizing, a remembering, a return and a home-coming to a far-off, ancient common-household of the soul, out of which those ideas formerly grew: philosophizing is so far a kind of atavism of the highest order.”

“So, when I write a piece of fiction I select my characters and settings and so on because they have a bearing, at least to me, on the old unanswerable philosophical questions. And as I spin out the action, I’m always very concerned with springing discoveries -- actual philosophical discoveries. But at the same time I’m concerned -- and finally more concerned -- with what the discoveries do to the character who makes them, and to the people around him. It’s that that makes me not really a philosopher, but a novelist.”

“I never made one of my discoveries through the process of rational thinking”

“...as I get older, I find myself insisting on my right to be philosophically sloppy.”