“I could settle down into a state ofequable low spirits, and resign myself to coffee.”

“I used to try to hypnotize myself into a Zen-like state of resignation at the outset. It doesn't work, not for this grasshopper. I have my own process, as they say. I call it the motherfucker process.”

“Never have I know spirits so low they could not be raised by hearing of a Frenchman eaten by a shark!”

“I settled opposite him in my favorite chair, low enough that my feet can touch the floor, wide enough to curl up inside, with a little table beside it just big enough to hold a book and a coffee cup.”

“I myself am a person who has never resigned myself, who is absolutely never resigned, who can’t imagine it at all. I simply observe, and I observe in so many people, and often very quickly, a resignation that terrifies me, that’s it.”

“I have already settled it for myself so flattery and criticism go down the same drain and I am quite free.”