Status Updates From Timbuktu

"He didn’t stop at the corner this time, and he didn’t stand around and wait for the ambulance to show up. What would have been the point? He knew it was coming, and once it got there, he knew where his master was headed."

-Auster, Paul. Timbuktu (pg. 84)

'I’m telling you, friend, things aren’t as simple as they look. The human spirit is a dull instrument, and often we’re no better at figuring out how to take care of ourselves than the lowest worm in the ground.'

-Auster, Paul. Timbuktu (pg. 57)

"Nothing did. For the longest time, it was as if the entire neighborhood had stopped breathing. No one walked by, no cars passed, not a single person went in or out of a house. The rain poured down, just as Mr. Bones had predicted it would, but then it slackened, gradually turned into a drizzle again, and at last made a quiet departure from the scene."

-Auster, Paul. Timbuktu (pg. 47)

"Literary pursuits were one thing, but how you conducted yourself in the world was quite another. Willy’s poems might have changed, but that still didn’t answer the question about whether Willy himself had changed. Did he actually become a new person, or was the plunge into sainthood no more than a passing impulse?"

-Auster, Paul. Timbuktu (pg. 24)