William Gaddis

Let them look up in the sky then…! if they must be so blind, that cannot see the truth in broad daylight, but must have the whole world in darkness to see the conceit of the stars…

How some of the writers I come across get through their books without dying of boredom is beyond me.

Why do you treat me as they do, as though I were exactly what I want to be. Why do we treat people that way?

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

He took off his hat and shook it (having hurried home as though his own coronation were waiting), and moved now with the slow deliberation of lonely people who have time for every meager requirement of their lives.

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

I was not a messiah, but an ordinary man who had become a leader because of extraordinary circumstances.

It’s so simple to be wise. Just think of something stupid to say and then don’t say it.

What, sir, would the people of the earth be without woman? They would be scarce, sir, almighty scarce.

A perfectly healthy sentence, it is true, is extremely rare. For the most part we miss the hue and fragrance of the thought; as if we could be satisfied with the dews of the morning or evening without their colors, or the heavens without their azure.

Independence? That’s middle class blasphemy. We are all dependent on one another, every soul of us on earth.

We boast our emancipation from many superstitions; but if we have broken any idols, it is through a transfer of idolatry.

Once we recognize that all things are impermanent, we have no problem enjoying them.

There is, indeed, nothing that so much seduces reason from vigilance, as the thought of passing life with an amiable woman.

Only poetry inspires poetry.

No soul is desolate as long as there is a human being for whom it can feel trust and reverence.

If we will be quiet and ready enough, we shall find compensation in every disappointment.

The jealous are troublesome to others, but a torment to themselves.

Those who cannot tell what they desire or expect, still sigh and struggle with indefinite thoughts and vast wishes.

Get your facts first, then you can distort them as you please.

A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines.