“After a while, marriage is a sibling relationship--marked by occasional, and rather regrettable, episodes of incest.”

“there in the night their bed had the towelly smell of marriage.”

“In the Gulag, it was not the case that people died like flies. Rather, flies died like people.”

“But before we face experience, that miserable enemy, let us have some more innocence, just for a while.”

“While clearly an impregnable masterpiece, Don Quixote suffers from one fairly serious flaw—that of outright unreadability.”

“And quite right too. Thinking back, actually, 'self-infatuation' strikes me as a rather ill-chosen word. It isn't so much that I like or love myself. Rather, I'm sentimental about myself. (I say, is this normal for someone my age?) What do I think of Charles Highway? I think: 'Charles Highway? Oh, I like him. Yes, I've got a soft spot for old Charles. He's all right is Charlie. Chuck's ... okay.”

“Rust is the failure of the work of man. The project, the venture, the experiment: failed, given up on, and not cleaned up after.”