Can Protagonist think of a single film that interests him as much as the three-hundredth best book he ever read?

The eternal silence of these infinite spaces frightens me.

Doubtless these are inconsequential perplexities. Still, inconsequential perplexities have now and again been known to become the fundamental mood of existence, one suspects.

In fact one frequently seemed to gather all sorts of similar information about subjects one had less than profound interest in.

Was it really some other person I was so anxious to discover...or was it only my own solitude that I could not abide?

Once, I had a dream of fame. Generally, even then, I was lonely.

What do any of us ever truly know?

The morning’s recollection of the emptiness of the day before. Its anticipation of the emptiness of the day to come.

Is T.S. Eliot the only poet one can think of who could have spent a year on his own in Paris at twenty-three—and managed to have no sexual encounter whatsoever?

I also believe I met William Gaddis once. He did not look Italian.

You will say that I am old and mad, was what Michaelangelo wrote, but I answer that there is no better way of being sane and free from anxiety than by being mad.

Where there is no integrity, there is no unity.

Embrace one another with a holy hug.

If his choice now was to risk either sunshine with a chance of rain or heatstroke with a chance of tornado, he’d go with the sunshine.

I don't buy the hype when everybody is saying how wonderful things are and how great I am, and I don't get too down when people say, "This is a disaster and he's done for."

I tend to take negative comments to heart.

The black person is the protagonist in most of my paintings. I realized that I didn't see many paintings with black people in them.

I will be lord over myself.

Homosexuality is the sexual plague of a monogamous society gone promiscuous. These societies that sow the winds of heterosexual freedom ironically reap the whirlwind of homosexual perversion.

There's a pleasure in being reminded of the value of ordinary life.

Our journey is just beginning.