“It is the fate of most men who mingle with the world, and attain even the prime of life, to make many real friends, and lose them in the course of nature. It is the fate of all authors or chroniclers to create imaginary friends, and lose them in the course of art. Nor is this the full extent of their misfortunes; for they are required to furnish an account of them besides.”

“They were glued down, every last one of them. A packet of souls. Was it fate?Misfortune?Is that what glued them down like that?Of course not.Let's not be stupid.It probably had more to do with the hurled bombs, thrown down by humans hiding in the clouds.”

“Since there is nothing so well worth having as friends, never lose a chance to make them.”

“Through [my friends] I discovered what it was to love people. There was an art to it...which was not really all that different from the love that is necessary in the making of art. It required the effort of always seeing them for themselves and not as I wished them to be...”

“For something to become a work of art, a labeling process must take place that requires three participants: an artist who produces an apt object, a client or public, and a critic or connoisseur who mediates between the artist and the public to assure them of the artness of the thing. If I make a painting, it is not sufficient for the painting to be "art" that I consider it so, nor even that you, my friend and neighbor, admire it and hang it on your wall; it must be certified as art by competent authority and exhibited in the institutionally appropriate place, a gallery or museum.”

“Most of our misfortunes are more supportable than the comments of our friends upon them.”