“He was the ultimate experiment in Nature Versus Nurture, and she imagined he must be engaged in a constant battle between what he was and what he wanted to be.”

“Ask the Outsider what he ultimately wants,and he will admit he doesn't know.Why? Because he wants it instinctively,and it is not always possible to tell what your instincts are driving towards.”

“Constant work, constant writing and constant revision. The real writer learns nothing from life. He is more like an oyster or a sponge. What he takes in he takes in normally the way any person takes in experience. But it is what is done with it in his mind, if he is a real writer, that makes his art.”

“A musician must make music, an artist must paint, a poet must write, if he is to be ultimately at peace with himself. What a man can be, he must be”

“What man needs is not just the persistent posing of ultimate questions, but the sense of what is feasible, what is possible, what is correct, here and now. The philosopher, of all people, must, I think, be aware of the tension between what he claims to achieve and the reality in which he finds himself.”

“and she said, ‘So there you are!’ She asked Frank what he thought he was doing, and he said, ‘Experimenting.’ That’s what Frank always used to say when people asked him what he thought he was doing. He always said, ‘Experimenting.’ (p. 15)”