“Every act he performed was self-haunted and synthetic.”

“He took pains to avoid self-depreciation, self-mockery, ambiguity, irony, subtlety, vulnerability, a civilized world-weariness and a tragic sense of history--the very things, he says, that are most natural to him.”

“World is supposed to mean something that's self-contained. but nothing is self-contained.”

“He imagines they are uniformly smiling, showing the face they squeeze out with the toothpaste every morning.”

“I am ashamed every day, and more ashamed the next. But I will spend the rest of my life in this living space writing these notes, this journal, recording my acts and reflections, finding some honor, some worth at the bottom of things. I want ten thousand pages that will stop the world.”

“It is the violent act that makes history and changes everything that came before.”

“Fear is self-awareness raised to a higher level.”