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The greatest lie ever told about love is that it sets you free.

Those few, golden years when he believed Heidegger would save his life.

I now have a talk that begins with the question, “How long does it take to write a novel?” and the answer is, as long as you’ve lived up to the time you sit down to write the novel, and then some.

“Possibly I was shown just a little too much of death, because, really, my friend, life means as little as death; life leads to death and both amount to nothing.”

I wonder if there are blasphemers of Satan, and if to blaspheme against him is a sin, from his point of view but also from God's.

I have work to do on the geography of volcanoes
From desolation to ruin
from the time of Lot to Hiroshima
As if I’d never yet lived with a lust
I’ve still to know
Perhaps Now has gone further away
and yesterday come closer
So I take
Now’s hand to walk along
the hem of history
and avoid cyclic time
with its chaos of mountain goats

Be worthy of the bread's aroma

The genius of evil hovers over society.

Revolutions occur to restore to the social order the balance that the encroachment of wealth always tends to destroy.

In early July 1802 Bonaparte banned all persons of color from entering French metropolitan territory. In mid-July he ordered the reintroduction of slavery in Guadalupe; and another decree in December of that year made similar provisions for Guyana. These measures effectively brought French colonies back under the Code Noir, with most of the emancipated men and women losing their rights they had gained after 1794.

Live long enough, and all things you ever loved can turn around to scorch you blind. The wonder is that you could start life with nothing, end with nothing, and lose so much in between.

What a piece of work is man, how noble in reason, how infinite in faculties, in form and moving, how express and admirable; in action how like an angel, in apprehension, how like a god: the beauty of the world, the paragon of animals. And yet, to me, what is this quintessence of dust? Man delights not me.

They would all walk into their voting booths, educated and uneducated, intelligent and dumb, and their votes would be worth the same. They sat, diligently filling in bubbles on paper, and, she thought, because of the voters’ impulsive, careless yearnings, wars started, debts soared, the land grew barren, and their great-grandchildren would starve.

things begin to lose their

natural value

when they approach

human

endeavor.

the price of creation

is never

too high.

the price of living

with other people

always

is.

each man’s hell

is in a different place: mine

is just up

and behind

my ruined

face.