Image: Thousand Robots Thousandrobots (talk)., CC BY-SA 2.0
25 quotes
American novelist, playwright and essayist
“Secrets are an exalted state, almost a dream state. They're a way of arresting motion, stopping the world so we can see ourselves in it.”
"There are dead stars that still shine because their light is trapped in time. Where do I stand in this light, which does not strictly exist?"
on Philosophy
"What we are reluctant to touch often seems the very fabric of our salvation."
"A writer takes earnest measures to secure his solitude and then finds endless ways to squander it."
on Writing
"Fear is self-awareness raised to a higher level."
on Fear
"There's always a period of curious fear between the first sweet-smelling breeze and the time when the rain comes cracking down."
on Nature
"Doesn't our knowledge of death make life more precious?'What good is a preciousness based on fear and anxiety? It's an anxious quivering thing"
on Death
"You need to know things the others don't know. It's what no one knows about you that allows you to know yourself."
on Self Awareness
"I used to think it was possible for an artist to alter the inner life of the culture. Now bomb-makers and gunmen have taken that territory."
on Art
"When birds look into houses, what impossible worlds they see."
"Everybody wants to own the end of the world."
"People who are powerless make an open theater of violence."
"Vanity is a defensive quality. it contains an element of fear."
"The true life is not reducible to words spoken or written, not by anyone, ever."
on Life
"When a writer doesn’t show his face, he becomes a local symptom of God’s famous reluctance to appear."
"Brilliant people never think of the lives they smash, being brilliant."
on Wisdom
"I've got death inside me. It's just a question of whether or not I can outlive it."
"As technology advances in complexity and scope, fear becomes more primitive."
"You shout because it makes you brave or you want to announce your recklessness."
on Courage
"Fear is intense self-awareness."
"The family is the cradle of the world's misinformation."
on Truth
