“When you know that something is dying inside you, you learn not to put much trust in the random vitalities of the fleeting moment.”

“Why should love require a contract? Why put yourself into the clutches of the state and give it power over you? Why invite lawyers to fuck around with your assets? Marriage is for the immature and the insecure and the ignorant. We who see through such institutions should be content to live together without legal coercion.”

“Living, we fret. Dying, we live. I’ll keep that in mind. I’ll be of good cheer.”

“It was like that all the time, in those years: an endless trip, a gaudy voyage. But powers decay. Time leaches the colors from the best of visions. The world becomes grayer. Entropy beats us down. Everything fades. Everything goes. Everything dies.”

“That is to say, things have a way of getting worse and worse all the time, until in the end they get so bad that we lack even the means of knowing how bad they really are.”

“He met me at the airport; it was ten in the morning, Washington time, when I arrived, after having taken a plane that left Los Angeles International at 10:10 A.M. Los Angeles time. Who says time-reversal is hard to accomplish?”

“My temperament is not inclined toward more self-promotion than is absolutely necessary for my professional well-being.”