I am in that glorious position where I can redesign and re-package my own work.
In comparison with a loving human being, everything else is worthless.
But that night as I drove back to Montreal, I at least discovered this: that there is no simple explanation for anything important any of us do, and that the human tragedy, or the human irony, consists in the necessity of living with the consequences of actions performed under the pressure of compulsions so obscure we do not and cannot understand them.
Man is a thinking animal, a talking animal, a toolmaking animal, a building animal, a political animal, a fantasizing animal. But, in the twilight of a civilization he is chiefly a taxpaying animal.
The Socialists can scheme their schemes and the Liberals can dream their dreams, but we, at least, have work to do.
The Greeks, who knew everything, understood that without the orgy there is no middle ground between bedlam and Toronto. . . we need the healing grace of the orgy in this country.
Love, sought as an escape from the burden of the self, turns rapidly into a captivity.
What exactly is mathematics? Many have tried but nobody has really succeeded in defining mathematics; it is always something else.
I try to remind myself that we are never promised anything, and that what control we can exert is not over the events that befall us but how we address ourselves to them.
The best philosophical attitude to adopt towards the world is a union of the sarcasm of gaiety with the indulgence of contempt.
Then it is also in my heart to be worthy of your hate.