“Not to be onto something is to be in despair.”

“To become aware of the possibility of the search is to be onto something. Not to be onto something is to be in despair.”

“The search is what anyone would undertake if he were not sunk in the everydayness of his own life. To become aware of the possibility of the search is to be onto something. Not to be onto something is to be in despair.”

“What is the nature of the search? you ask. Really it is very simple, at least for a fellow like me; so simple that it is easily overlooked. The search is what anyone would undertake if he were not sunk in the everydayness of his own life. This morning, for example, I felt as if I had come to myself on a strange island. And what does such a cast away do? Why he pokes around the neighborhood and he doesn't miss a trick. To become aware of the search is to be onto something. Not to be onto something is to be in despair.”

“I like to eat crawfish and drink beer. That's despair?”

“Fiction doesn’t tell us something we don’t know, it tells us something we know but don’t know that we know.”

“Losing hope is not so bad. There's something worse: losing hope and hiding it from yourself.”