“I am an old scholar, better-looking now than when I was young. That's what sitting on your ass does to your face.”
“I've known you for years. Everyone says you were beautiful when you were young, but I want to tell you I think you're more beautiful now than then. Rather than your face as a young woman, I prefer your face as it is now. Ravaged.”
“I am for an art that is political-erotical-mystical, that does something more than sit on its ass in a museum.”
“I didn't mind getting old when I was young. It's the being old now that's getting to me.”
“I don't want no better book than what your face is.”
“But of course these conjectures as to why God does what He does are probably of no more value than my dog's ideas of what I am up to when I sit and read.”