Paul Bowles Quotes

American composer and writer (1910–1999)

Paul Bowles (30 December 1910 – 18 November 1999) was a composer, author, and traveler.

From: Wikiquote (CC BY-SA 4.0)

Alternative Names: Paul Frederic Bowles

From Wikidata (CC0)

For in order to avoid having to deal with relative values, he had long since come to deny all purpose to the phenomenon of existence — it was more expedient and comforting.

Because we don't know when we will die, we get to think of life as an inexhaustible well. Yet everything happens only a certain number of times, and a very small number really. How many more times will you remember a certain afternoon of your childhood, some afternoon that is so deeply a part of your being that you can't even conceive of your life without it? Perhaps four or five times more, perhaps not even that. How many more times will you watch the full moon rise? Perhaps twenty. And yet it all seems limitless.

Many days later another caravan was passing and a man saw something on top of the highest dune there. And when they went up to see, they found Outka, Mimouna and Aicha; they were still there, lying the same way as when they had gone to sleep. And all three of the glasses... were full of sand. That was how they had their tea in the Sahara.

No one can ever heap enough insults upon me to suit my taste. I think we all really thrive on hostility, because it's the most intense kind of massage the ego can undergo. Other people's indifference is the only horror.