“What do women really want? They eat green salad and drink human blood.”

“Still women- women. They do themselves more credit, there's more reality in women. They live closer to their nature. They have to. It's more with them. They have the breasts. They see their blood, and it does them good, while men are led to be vainer.”

“Human consciousness at present is a sort of battlefield. And you know what Tolstoy tells us about battles in War and Peace. Nobody really knows what is going on during a battle...”

“I want to tell you, don't marry suffering. Some people do. They get married to it, and sleep and eat together, just as husband and wife. If they go with joy they think it's adultery.”

“What makes me say these things is that I see how much you care about the way people look at you. It matters too much to you. And there are people who take advantage of that. They haven't got anything of their own and they'll leave you nothing for yourself. They want to put themselves in your thoughts and in your mind, and that you should care for them. It's a sickness. But they don't want you to care for them as they really are. No, that's the whole stunt. You have to be conscious of them, but not as they are, only as they love to be seen. They live through observation by the ones around them, and they want you to live like that too. Augie darling, don't do it. They will make you suffer from what they are. And you don't really matter to them.”

“The flesh would shrink and go, the blood would dry, but no one believes in his mind of minds or heart of hearts that the pictures do stop.”

“You do all you can to humanize and familiarize the world, and suddenly it becomes more strange than ever.”