Smiling half-reluctance seems to promise more than the frankest gesture of desire.
All the powers of imagination combine in hypochondria.
Suspense combines curiosity with fear and pulls them up a rising slope.
Every doctrine has a theory of the beginning.
Deconstruction: peering suspiciously at the text, I wait for it to make a slip and betray itself.
In the labyrinth of a difficult text, we find unmarked forks in the path, detours, blind alleys, loops that deliver us back to our point of entry, and finally the monster who whispers an unintelligible truth in our ears.
Magic trick: to make people disappear, ask them to fulfill their promises.
After an argument, silence may mean acceptance or the continuation of resistance by other means.
For many, immaturity is an ideal, not a defect.
Office politics are bloody-minded, but weak on content.
Friends are sometimes boring, but enemies never.
In the game of love, the losers are more celebrated than the winners.
We are prepared for insults, but compliments leave us baffled.
I love you is the inscription on Pandora’s box.
Flattery and insults raise the same question: What do you want?
Innocence is thought charming because it offers delightful possibilities for exploitation.
Innocence: I am only stepping on your face because it lies in my path.
If you are going to break a Law of Art, make the crime interesting.
Bad faith likes discourse on friendship and loyalty.
Even boredom has its crises.