But, like Tatyana reading the manual of dream interpretation, I was already aware of something somewhere portending “a multitude

a personage whose refrigerator-like build, rubbery face, and heavy eyelids brought to mind some anthropomorphic piece of furniture in a Disney movie.

Foucault’s short essay on Don Quixote in The Order of Things,

What did craft ever try to say about the world, the human condition, or the search for meaning? All it had were its negative dictates: “Show, don’t tell”; “Murder your darlings”; “Omit needless words.” As if writing were a matter of overcoming bad habits—of omitting needless words.

The Way They Were,

sprawling, ideologically overpopulated, generically ambiguous, Demons—formerly translated as The Possessed—haunts me like a prophetic dream. The title

In Bukhara we visited the emir’s palace, which was overrun by peacocks.

“When you buy a dress, do you buy the dress that is the most beautiful . . . or the dress that is made with the most cloth?”

Whenever Babel meets anyone, he has to fathom what he is. Always “what,” not “who.”