The New York Trilogy Part I

'If being followed was a certainty, what did it matter [who the particular watcher was]? A watcher, once discovered, could always be replaced by another.'

[...]

'Anything else, even the truth, would be an invention, a mask to hide behind and keep him safe.'

[...]

'Remember: throughout the book Don Quixote is preoccupied by the question of posterity. Again and again he wonders how accurately his chronicler will record his adventures. This implies knowledge on his part; he knows beforehand that his chronicler exists. [...] Cervantes hiring Don Quixote to deciphier the story of Don Quixote himself. There's great beauty to it.'

[...]

'A meal was no more than a fragile defence against the inevitability of the next meal. Food itself could never answer the question of food: it only delayed the moment when the question would have to be asked in earnest.'

[...]

'Night and day were no more than relative terms; they did not refer to an absolute condition. At any given moment, it was always both. The only reason we did not know it was because we could not be in two places at the same time.'

[...]

'And wherever he may have disappeared to, I wish him luck'

(Paul Auster, City of Glass)