“It is clear that there is no classification of the Universe that is not arbitrary and full of conjectures. The reason for this is very simple: we do not know what kind of thing the universe is.”

You can’t measure time by days, the way you measure money by dollars and cents, because dollars are all the same while every day is different and maybe every hour as well.

I never reread what I’ve written. I’m far too afraid to feel ashamed of what I’ve done.

I have always imagined that Paradise will be a kind of library.

One concept corrupts and confuses the others. I am not speaking of the Evil whose limited sphere is ethics; I am speaking of the infinite.

I cannot walk through the suburbs in the solitude of the night without thinking that the night pleases us because it suppresses idle details, just as our memory does.

Art is endless like a river flowing, passing, yet remaining.

I had always thought of Paradise / In form and image as a library.

Death is just infinity closing in.

A writer should have another lifetime to see if he’s appreciated.

For me, beauty is a physical sensation, something we feel with our whole body. It is not the result of judgement. We do not arrive at it by way of rules. We either feel beauty or we don’t.

The original is unfaithful to the translation.

Every novel is an ideal plane inserted into the realm of reality.

The Falklands thing was a fight between two bald men over a comb.

A system is nothing more than the subordination of all aspects of the universe to any one of such aspects.

A writer’s work is the product of laziness.

Poets, like the blind, can see in the dark.

What I’m really concerned about is reaching one person. And that person may be myself for all I know.

I’m not messing around with nobody’s woman. If I want a woman I go get her – you know what I mean?

I don’t like to hear someone put down dixieland. Those people who say there’s no music but bop are just stupid; it shows how much they don’t know.

Artt Frank is my all-time favorite drummer. He always seems to know where I’m going.

White folks always think that you have to have a label on everything – you know what I mean?

In a way, it’s nice to know there are Greek gods out there, because you have somebody to blame when things go wrong.

[Jazz musicians] feel comfortable with their clichés, you know.

Whatever I’d say would be an understatement. I can only say my life was made much better by knowing him. He was one of the greatest people I’ve ever known, as a man, a friend, and a musician.