It just seemed like telling the truth would mean admitting some weakness

I knew it was beautiful, but knowing something is beautiful and caring about it are two very different things, and I didn't care.

People can't really sympathize with you properly when you've woken them up

I felt so alone on that train... a weird, unnatural kind of alone that bore into me. It was feeling just beyond fear and somewhere to the left of sadness.

I know no one is perfect, that behind every facade of perfection is a writhing mess of subterfuge and secret sorrows... but even taking that into account, Noah was pretty much perfect.

No, no. Don't make that face. Every time I propose to you, you make that twisty, unhappy face. It wears on a man's confidence.

It is not so much being all that you dream of becoming as it is un-becoming all that is covering your being.

My daughter, dad where do homeless people come from? My answer, everywhere.

The man who is seriously convinced that he deserves hell is not likely to go there, while the man who believes that he is worthy of heaven will certainly never enter that blessed place.

Lenin had taken part in Jewish student meetings in Switzerland thirty-five years before.

When you consider how many millions of workdays begin with hangovers great and small, it is mildly ­surprising to find how few real descriptions of the experience our literature can boast.

For in the end, the irreality function functions as well in the face of man as in the face of the cosmos. What would we know of others if we did not imagine things?

Many trees have died so that the Catholic Church can preach against homosexuality.

I need to retire from retirement.

I like to have friends in the kitchen and make a big mess and use every pot in the kitchen.