William Gaddis

That was Youth with its reckless exuberance when all things were possible pursued by Age where we are now, looking back at what we destroyed, what we tore away from that self who could do more, and its work that’s become my enemy because that’s what I can tell you about, that Youth who could do anything.

Originality is a device that untalented people use to impress other untalented people to protect themselves from talented people…

If it is not beautiful for someone, it does not exist.

Stupidity is the deliberate cultivation of ignorance.

What you seek in vain for, half your life, one day you come full upon, all the family at dinner. You seek it like a dream, and as soon as you find it, you become its prey.

He was doing missionary work. But from the outset he had little success in convincing his charges of their responsibility for a sin committed at the beginning of creation, one which, as they understood it, they were ready and capable (indeed, they carried charms to assure it) of duplicating themselves. He did no better convincing them that a man had died on a tree to save them all: an act which one old Indian, if Gwyon had translated correctly, regarded as “rank presumption”.

I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. I did not wish to live what was not life… I wanted to live so sturdily and so Spartan-like as to put to rout all that was not life… to drive life into a corner to know it by experience and be able to give an account of it in my next excursion.

It is lamentable, that to be a good patriot one must become the enemy of the rest of mankind.

We are made wise not by the recollection of our past, but by the responsibility for our future.

Fame must have enemies, as light must have gnats.

Cruel with guilt, and daring with despair, the midnight murderer bursts the faithless bar; invades the sacred hour of silent rest and leaves, unseen, a dagger in your breast.

Nothing can be more contrary to religion and the clergy than reason and common sense.

It is better to light a single candle than to curse the darkness.

If we win, nobody will care. If we lose, there will be nobody to care.

Fear follows crime and is its punishment.

This is certain, that a man that studieth revenge keeps his wounds green, which otherwise would heal and do well.

The way to do well is to do well.

I shall not wholly die, and a great part of me will escape the grave.

Don’t seek, don’t search, don’t ask, don’t knock, don’t demand — relax!

Dictionaries are like watches; the worst is better than none, and the best cannot be expected to be quite true.

Every hero becomes a bore at last.