William Gaddis

That after an hour’s silence he can say, The one thing I cannot stand is dampness… That’s all, it took him an hour to work that out.

Everybody has that feeling when they look at a work of art and it’s right, that sudden familiarity, a sort of…recognition, as though they were creating it themselves, as though it were being created through them while they look at it or listen to it.

What you seek in vain for, half your life, one day you come full upon, all the family at dinner. You seek it like a dream, and as soon as you find it, you become its prey.

There’s much more stupidity than there is malice in the world.

He took off his hat and shook it (having hurried home as though his own coronation were waiting), and moved now with the slow deliberation of lonely people who have time for every meager requirement of their lives.

If you want to make a million you don’t have to understand money, what you have to understand is people’s fears about money.

Nothing external to you has any power over you.

In the morning a man walks with his whole body; in the evening, only with his legs.

You live longer once you realize that any time spent being unhappy is wasted.

Today is the oldest you’ve ever been, and the youngest you’ll ever be again.

To know, is to know that you know nothing. That is the meaning of true knowledge.

As there is a use in medicine for poisons, so the world cannot move without rogues.

But the effect of her being on those around her was incalculably diffusive: for the growing good of the world is partly dependent on unhistoric acts; and that things are not so ill with you and me as they might have been, is half owing to the number who lived faithfully a hidden life, and rest in unvisited tombs.

A man finds room in the few square inches of the face for the traits of all his ancestors; for the expression of all his history, and his wants.

We are apt to love praise, but not deserve it. But if we would deserve it, we must love virtue more than that.

All colors will agree in the dark.

Wherever you are, be there totally.

A dream you dream alone is only a dream. A dream you dream together is reality.

The greatest part of a writer’s time is spent in reading, in order to write; a man will turn over half a library to make one book.

When one wanted one’s interests looking after whatever the cost, it was not so well for a lawyer to be over honest, else he might not be up to other people’s tricks.

The harder you work, the harder it is to surrender.