Life is death, and death is a kind of life.”

For this is the function of the story: to make a man see the thing before his eyes by holding up another thing to view.

Written language absolves one of the need to remember much of the world, for the memories are stored in the words.

Speak or die. And for as long as you go on speaking, you will not die.

“But where is the part of it which it does not itself contain?”

no—I will not give up nothingness father—I feel nothingness invade me

The pen will never be able to move fast enough to write down every word discovered in the space of memory.

At his bravest moments, he embraces meaninglessness as the first principle, and then he understands that his obligation is to see what is in front of him (even though it is also inside him) and to say what he sees.

“All the unhappiness of man stems from one thing only: that he is incapable of staying quietly in his room.”