William Gaddis

I’ll tell you why yes, because why people lie is, because when people stop lying you know they’ve stopped caring.

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.

It is the bliss of childhood that we are being warped most when we know it the least.

Reading Proust isn’t just reading a book, it’s an experience and you can’t reject an experience.

I see the player piano as the grandfather of the computer, the ancestor of the entire nightmare we live in, the birth of the binary world where there is no option other than yes or no and where there is no refuge.

Merry Christmas! the man threatened.

Pity the man who has a character to support – it is worse than a large family – he is silent poor indeed.

We must learn to live together as brothers or perish together as fools.

What if… everything you are going through is preparing you for what you asked for?

Every wall is a door.

I cannot pretend to feel impartial about colors. I rejoice with the brilliant ones and am genuinely sorry for the poor browns.

Valor consists in the power of self recovery.

People wish to be settled. It is only as far as they are unsettled that there is any hope for them.

The truths of religion are never so well understood as by those who have lost the power of reason.

A man is not finished when he is defeated. He is finished when he quits.

As Puppets are to Men, and Babies to Children, so is Man’s Workmanship to God’s: We are the Picture, he the Reality.

When things are steep, remember to stay level-headed.

We run to win, not just to be in the race.

There is always a best way of doing everything.

There are two tragedies in life. One is not to get your heart’s desire. The other is to get it.

Rebellion to tyrants is obedience to God.