Each organism raises its head over a field of corpses, smiles into the sun, and declares life good. - Elias Canetti

There is something impure in the laments about the dangers of our time, as if they could serve to excuse our personal failure.

It amazes me how a person to whom literature means anything can take it up as an object of study.

You don’t have to know a philosopher’s every syllable to know why he rubs you the wrong way. You may know it best after a few of his sentences, and les and less well after that. The important thing is to see his web and move away before you tear it.