“For whom is the funhouse fun? Perhaps for lovers. For Ambrose it is a place of fear and confusion. ”

“He wishes he had never entered the funhouse. But he has. Then he wishes he were dead. But he's not. Therefore he will construct funhouses for others and be their secret operator -- though he would rather be among the lovers for whom funhouses are designed.”

“I admire writers who can make complicated things simple, but my own talent has been to make simple things complicated.”

“Indeed, if I have yet to join the hosts of the suicides, it is because (fatigue apart) I find it no meaningfuller to drown myself than to go on swimming.”

“In art as in lovemaking, heartfelt ineptitude has its appeal and so does heartless skill, but what you want is passionate virtuosity.”

“Everyone is necessarily the hero of his own life story.”

“Nobody knew how to be what they were right. ”