Vincent

“When a human being develops an argument, when a human being attempts not only to think but to speak with precision, he or she is often made to feel that this is a mark of social inadequacy and that there is something comical about it. The younger the human being, the more humorous it becomes. So that humans whose inclination it is to think and speak in this way become self-conscious from an early age, and a kind of minstrelisation creeps in.”
― Helen DeWitt, Some Trick: Thirteen Stories

“When you play a piece of music there are so many different ways you could play it. You keep asking yourself what if. You try this and you say what if and you try that. When you buy a CD you get one answer to the question. You never get the what if.”
― Helen DeWitt, The Last Samurai

“It’s not against Lottery regulations to lose, obviously - somebody’s got to - but it’s against the Rules to be seen to lose. It’s against the Rules to be seen to win. It’s not just that you break the Rules by sitting there. It’s that you put everyone else in the position of ostentatious Rulebreakers, manoeuvred into flashing their luck just by walking to work.”
― Helen DeWitt, Your Name Here

“It is the way one treats his inferiors more than the way he treats his equals which reveals one’s real character.”
― Charles Bayard Mitchell