Dreams? If only they had been! But I don't need dreams, Doctor, that's why I hardly have them — because I have this life instead. With me it all happ… - Philip Roth

I cannot and do not live in the world of discretion, not as a writer, anyway. I would prefer to, I assure you — it would make life easier. But discretion is, unfortunately, not for novelists.

They boo you, they whistle, they stamp their feet — you hate it but you thrive on it. Because the things that wear you down are the things that nurture you and your talent.

Immediate reality is outside that window; so big it is, so much of it, everything entangled in everything else...What large thought Sabbath was struggling to express? Is he asking, "Whatever did happen to my own true life?" Was it taking place elsewhere? But how then can looking out of this window be so gigantically real? Well, that is the difference between the true and the real. We don't get to live in the truth. That's why Nikki ran away. She was an idealist, an innocent, touching, talented illusionist who wanted to live in the truth. Well, if you found it, kid, you're the first. In my experience the direction of life is toward incoherence — precisely what you would never confront. Maybe that was the only coherent thing you could think to do: die to deny incoherence.