Everything can change at any moment, suddenly and forever. – Paul Auster
I was always interested in French poetry sort of as a sideline to my own work, I was translating contemporary French poets. That kind of spilled out into translation as a way to earn money, pay for food and put bread on the table. – Paul Auster
All I wanted to do was write – at the time, poems, and prose, too. I guess my ambition was simply to make money however I could to keep myself going in some modest way, and I didnt need much, I was unmarried at the time, no children. – Paul Auster
We construct a narrative for ourselves, and thats the thread that we follow from one day to the next. People who disintegrate as personalities are the ones who lose that thread. – Paul Auster
The Germans are the most philosophic people in the world, and the greatest smokers: now I trace their philosophy to their smoking. Smoking has a sedative effect upon the nerves, and enables a man to bear the sorrows of this life (of which every one has his share) not only decently, but dignifiedly. – George Borrow