William Gaddis

How real is any of the past, being every moment revalued to make the present possible.

It is a naked city. Faith is not pampered, nor hope encouraged; there is no place to lay one’s exhaustion: but instead pinnacles skewer it undisguised against vacancy.

Stupidity is the deliberate cultivation of ignorance.

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.

Merry Christmas! the man threatened.

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

The important work of moving the world forward does not wait to be done by perfect men.

No man is fit to command another that cannot command himself.

It doesn’t matter who you are or what you look like as long as somebody loves you.

What right have I to grieve, who have not ceased to wonder?

Conversation is an art in which a man has all mankind for competitors.

Damn the subjunctive. It brings all our writers to shame.

Not only must we be good, but we must also be good for something.

The greatest lesson in life is to know that even fools are right sometimes.

No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism.

Be virtuous and you will be eccentric.

A bizarre sensation pervades a relationship of pretense. No truth seems true. A simple morning’s greeting and response appear loaded with innuendo and fraught with implications. Each nicety becomes more sterile and each withdrawal more permanent.

The universe seems bankrupt as soon as we begin to discuss the characters of individuals.

Treating your adversary with respect is striking soft in battle.

If the desire to kill and the opportunity to kill came always together, who would escape hanging?

Once you start down the dark path, forever will it dominate your destiny, consume you it will.