Quotes
You take off your clothes and you're in bed with somebody, and that is indeed where whatever you've concealed, your particularity, whatever it may be, however encrypted, is going to be found out, and that's what all the shyness is all about and what everybody fears.
The Human Stain
The danger with hatred is, once you start in on it, you get a hundred times more than you bargained for. Once you start, you can't stop.
The Human Stain
There is truth and then again there is truth. For all that the world is full of people who go around believing they've got you or your neighbor figured out, there really is no bottom to what is not known. The truth about us is endless. As are the lies.
The Human Stain
We leave a stain, we leave a trail, we leave our imprint. Impurity, cruelty, abuse, error, excrement, semen - there�s no other way to be here. Nothing to do with disobedience. Nothing to do with grace or salvation or redemption. It�s in everyone. Indwelling. Inherent. Defining. The stain that is there before its mark.
The Human Stain
The pleasure isn't in owning the person. The pleasure is this. Having another contender in the room with you.
The Human Stain
Because that is when you love somebody - when you see them being game in the face of the worst. Not courageous. Not heroic. Just game.
The Human Stain
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On Anger: "For every minute you remain angry, you give up sixty seconds of peace of mind."
Essays
Essays
On Destiny: "Our destiny exercises its influence over us even when, as yet, we have not learned its nature: it is our future that lays down the law of our today."
Human, All Too Human
Human, All Too Human
On Friendship: "A crowd is not company; and faces are but a gallery of pictures; and talk but a tinkling cymbal, where there is no love."
Essays
Essays