I believe that writers, unless they consider themselves terribly exquisite, are at heart people who live by night, a little bit outside society, moving between delinquency and conformity. – Guillermo Cabrera Infante

Suicide, moreover, was at the time in vogue in Paris: what more suitable key to the mystery of life for a skeptical society? – Honore de Balzac

Widespread caffeine use explains a lot about the twentieth century. – Greg Egan, “Distress”