素履之往

我的迷茫和胆怯也一直都在，但我告诉自己，就算是万丈深渊，走下去，也是前程万里。

流离火

如果不是因为寂寞，我们的生命里原本不需要那么多不相干的人。

木心谈木心

我的一生中，确实多的是这种事，比越窑的碗，珍贵百倍千倍万倍的物和人，都已一一脱手而去，有的甚至是碎了的。艺术不是比赛，不要比谁第一名第二名。各种艺术的关系是“掩映”，自我也可以“掩映”。但丁参加选美。八十位美女，他评到第八十名，说，把你排到第一名，也一样美丽。

如何读，为什么读

Melville was not a Christian, and tended to identify with the ancient Gnostic heresy, in which the creator God of this world is a bungler and impostor, while the true God, called the Stranger or Alien God, is exiled somewhere in the outer regions of the cosmos.Early, major Faulkner is a kind of unknowing Gnostic; West, Pynchon, and McCarthy in their different ways are very knowing indeed. My subject is how to read their best fiction, and why, and not how to instruct my own readers in ancient heterodoxies (at least not here!), but the first sequence of four novels that I have chosen, in the wake of Melville, achieve their negative splendors in modes parallel to Gnostic visions, as we will see.