728 Quotes by Paul Auster

What will happen when there are no more pages in the red notebook?

It always stimulates me to discover new examples of my own prejudice and stupidity, to realize that I don’t know half as much as I think I do.

It’s like a mathematical law, Grace.

Most people just want to be part of the world, they want to live, love, and enjoy themselves – to take part in the world around them. Whereas artists are always retreating, locking the door, and inventing other worlds.

I’m looking for oblivion, Doctor, not death. The drugs will put me to sleep, and as long as I’m unconscious, I won’t have to think about what I’m doing. I’ll be there, but I won’t be there, and to the degree that I’m not there, I’ll be protected.

Yes, she is in love with him, and yes, in spite of his qualms and inner hesitations, he loves her back, however improbable that might seem to him. Note here for the record that he is not someone with a special fixation on young girls. Until now, all the women in his life have been more or less his own age. Pilar therefore does not represent an embodiment of some ideal female type for him – she is merely herself, a small piece of luck he stumbled across one afternoon in a public park, an exception to every rule.

In fact, writing, especially writing autobiographical works, and this is actually the fourth time I’ve done it, each time I’ve done it I’ve felt deeply immersed in the material as I’m doing it, and then it’s over and everything is the same.

Only God can see the main road and the back road at the same time – which means that only God can know if you made the right choice or the wrong choice.

Betty died of a broken heart. Some people laugh when they hear that phrase, but that’s because they don’t know anything about the world. People die of broken hearts. It happens every day, and it will go on happening to the end of time.