You never see a lion crucifying another lion. You never see a bear just randomly murdering salmon for anything besides food; bears don’t form armies, invade rivers, tear the heads off male salmon, rape the female salmon, and enslave their salmon children.

when someone rises up and promises that things are going to be better, run. Hide. Pessimists don’t build gas chambers.

I’m Miss Holocaust, 1945.

Protecting a child from the outside world is easy, said Anne Frank as Kugel struggled to descend; his leg ached and he could only hold on, awkwardly, with his one good hand. Protecting him from his inner world, Anne Frank continued, is quite a bit more complicated.

Has a gun owner ever, in the history of the weapon, been satisfied with a small gun? If a small gun can save me, he figures, what can a big gun save? What can the biggest gun save? What can a bomb save?

The breeze blew like a whatever.

Tall people appeared to have it easy; that was what Kugel found so galling. Like things just went their way. Let’s go buy a house! Let’s get expensive diving watches! Why not, we’re tall!

the philosophy of science, the science of literature, the art of philosophy, the science of art, books about other books and the books about those books about other books; Gogol on Pushkin, Nabokov on Gogol, Wilson on Nabokov on Gogol. Joyce on The Odyssey, Beckett on Joyce, everyone on Beckett.

THE SUN WAS IN THE SKY like a something.