Quotes from book

Humboldt's Gift

“Death is the dark backing that a mirror needs if we are to see anything.”

“Once you had read the Psychopathology of Everyday Life, you knew that everyday life was psychopathology.”

“I never yet touched a fig leaf that didn't turn into a price tag.”

“Ninety per cent of life is a nightmare, do you think I am going to get it rounded up to hundred per cent?”

“It seems, after all that there are no nonpeculiar people.”

“One must bear in mind the odd angle or slant that the rays of love have to take in order to reach a heart like mine.”

“She's very pretty but she's honey from the icebox, if you know what I mean. Cold sweets won't spread.”

“Boredom is an instrument of social control. Power is the power to impose boredom, to command stasis, to combine this stasis with anguish. The real tedium, deep tedium, is seasoned with terror and with death.”