The New York Trilogy

is strange enough—to be only half alive at best, seeing the world only through words, living only through the lives of others.

lost chances are as much a part of life as chances taken, and a story cannot dwell on what might have been.

The telephone was not his favorite object, and more than once he had considered getting rid of his. What he disliked most of all was its tyranny. Not only did it have the power to interrupt him against his will, but inevitably he would give in to its command