Paul Auster

"Every time my nose gushed blood, I felt like a little boy whod wet his pants. I jumped out of the chair, pressed a handkerchief against my face, and hustled toward the nearest bathroom [...] How red the blood looked against the whiteness of the porcelain sink, I thought. How vividly imagined that color was, how aesthetically shocking. The other fluids that came out of us were dull in comparison, the palest of squirts. Whitish spittle, milky semen, yellow pee, green-brown mucus. We excreted autumn and winter colors, but running invisibly through our veins, the very stuff that kept us alive, was the crimson of a mad artist—a red as brilliant as fresh paint."

"I didnt say I was afraid of dying, I answered, I said that I was afraid to get on a plane. There is a difference. (David to Dr. Singh)"

"If a tree falls in the forest and no one hears it fall, does it make a sound or not? Hector had read alot of books by then, he knew all the tricks and arguments of the philosophers. If someone makes a movie and no one sees it, does the movie exist or not?"

"Thats what makes his story so impossible, David. Because hes told me the truth. (Alma to David on Hector)"

"The story is not in the words; its in the struggle."

"Men dont begin to live fully until their backs are against the wall."

"[G]overnments always need enemies, even when theyre not at war. If you dont have a real enemy, you make one up and spread the word. It scares the population, and when the people are scared, they tend not to step out of line."

"April 1945. My unit was in Germany, and we were the ones who liberated Dachau. Thirty thousands breathing skeletons. Youve seen the pictures, but the pictures dont tell you what it was like. You have to go there and smell it for yourself; you have to be there and touch it with your own hands. Human beings did it to human beings, and they did it with a clear conscience. That was the end of mankind [...] Im sure youve read the stories about how some of them couldnt stop eating. The starved ones. Theyd thought about food for so long, they couldnt help it. They ate until their stomachs burst, and they died. Hundreds of them."

"For only the good doubt their own goodness, which is what makes them good in the first place. The bad know they are good, but the good know nothing. They spend their lives forgiving others, but they cant forgive themselves."