“true fiction is more likely to include what was overlooked or ignored or barely seen or felt at the time of its occurrences but comes continually to mind ten or twenty years afterwards not on account of its having long ago provoked passion or pain but because of its appearing to be part of a pattern of meaning that extends over much of a lifetime”
― A Million Windows
― A Million Windows
“The essence of spirit, he thought to himself, was to choose the thing which did not better one's position but made it more perilous. That was why the world he knew was poor, for it insisted morality and caution were identical.”
― The Deer Park
― The Deer Park
“Marriage, as a human institution, depends on the concept of first being better than best. And so does business.”
― Positioning: The Battle for Your Mind
― Positioning: The Battle for Your Mind
“Plato laments the decline of the oral tradition and the atrophy of memory which writing induces, I at the other end of the Age of the Written Word am impressed by the sturdiness and reliability of words on paper... The will to record indelibly, to set down stories in permanent words, seems to me akin to the conviction that we are larger than our biologies.”
― How to Be Alone
― How to Be Alone
“I read once that certain musical compositions (by Bach? by Beethoven? I forget) sounded like the efforts of the human soul to explain itself to God. If ever I find my perfect combination of brown and lilac, I’ll feel as though I’ve thus explained myself.”
― Something for the Pain: A Memoir of the Turf
― Something for the Pain: A Memoir of the Turf
Robert’s 2025 Year in Books
Take a look at Robert’s Year in Books, including some fun facts about their reading.
More friends…
Polls voted on by Robert
Lists liked by Robert




























