One day Chuang Tzu fell asleep, and while he slept he dreamed that he was a butterfly, flying happily about. And this butterfly did not know that it was Chuang Tzu dreaming. Then he awoke, to all appearances himself again, but now he did not know whether he was a man dreaming that he was a butterfly or a butterfly dreaming that he was a man.
--The teachings of Chuang Tzu

Had he kept a pain diary, the only entry
would have been one word: Myself.
--Philip Roth

To Nora

I had always imagined that my life story, if and when I wrote it, would have a great first line: something lyric like Nabokov's "Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins"; or if I could no do lyric, then something sweeping like Tolstoy's "All happy familes are alike, but every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way."

If you are lonely, I think it helps to be a little crazy as long as you don't overdo it.

I folded the passage up again and I ate it.