The Forces of my uncertainty

And even if there was an end, it seemed doubtful that I would ever know about it - which meant that the story would go on and on, secreting its poison inside me forever. The struggle was to accept that, to coexist with the forces of my uncertainty. Desperate as I was for a resolution, I had to understand that it might never come. You can hold on to your breath for so long, after all. Sooner or later, a moment comes when you have to start breathing again - even if the air is tainted, even if you know it will eventually kill you.

Paul Auster
Leviathan

The nub of catastrophe

An overly refined conscience, a predisposition toward guilt in the face of his own desires, led a good man to act in curiously underhanded ways, in ways that compromised his own goodness. This is the nub of catastrophe, I think. He accepted everyone else's frailties, but when it came to himself he demanded perfection, an almost superhuman rigor in even the smallest acts. The result was disappointment, a dumbfounding awareness of his own flawed humanity, which drove him to place even more stringent demands on his conduct, which in turn led to ever more suffocating disappointments. If he had learned to love himself a little more, he wouldn't have had the power to cause so much unhappiness around him.

Paul Auster
Leviathan

Men are monsters

'Men are monsters,' I said, unable to stop myself. 'They have ants in their pants, and their heads are crammed with filth. Especially when they are young.'

'Not filth,' Fanny said. 'Just hormones.'

'Those too. But sometimes it's hard to tell the difference.'

'You always wore an earnest look on your face,' she said. 'I remember thinking that you must have been a very serious person. One of those young men who was either going to kill himself or change the world.'

'So far, I haven't done either. I guess that means I 've given up my old ambitions.'

'And a good thing, too. You don't want to get stuck in the past. Life is too interesting for that.'

Paul Auster

Leviathan