“We read, frequently if not unknowingly, in search of a mind more original than our own.”

“We read frequently if unknowingly, in quest of a mind more original than our own.”

“We are ultimately unknowable to ourselves and others. Our past and future are mostly unknowable. God is unknowable. For the present the universe - its origins and its destiny - is unknowable, as is whether there are many universes. Infinity is unknowable. These are some of the fundamental reasons why I call myself an agnostic.”

“No weakness of the human mind has more frequently incurred animadversion, than the negligence with which men overlook their own faults, however flagrant, and the easiness with which they pardon them, however frequently repeated.”

“We writers can use our own longing - and frequently do - without ever having to understand or analyze it. That is why our stories are often wiser than we are.”

“Other men are lenses through which we read our own minds.”