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

“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.”

“...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.”

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

“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.”

“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.”

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