Writers are a little below clowns and a little above trained seals.
To be alive at all is to have scars.
Socialism never took root in America because the poor see themselves not as an exploited proletariat but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires.
His ear heard more than what was said to him, and his slow speech had overtones not of thought, but of understanding beyond thought.
Perhaps the best conversationalist in the world is the man who helps others to talk.
As happens sometimes, a moment settled and hovered and remained for much more than a moment. And sound stopped and movement stopped for much, much more than a moment.
A kind of light spread out from her. And everything changed color. And the world opened out. And a day was good to awaken to. And there were no limits to anything. And the people of the world were good and handsome. And I was not afraid any more.
I shall revenge myself in the cruelest way you can imagine. I shall forget it.
I have come to believe that a great teacher is a great artist and that there are as few as there are any other great artists. Teaching might even be the greatest of the arts since the medium is the human mind and spirit.
Maybe ever’body in the whole damn world is scared of each other.
You’re going to pass something down no matter what you do or if you do nothing. Even if you let yourself go fallow, the weeds will grow and the brambles. Something will grow.
All war is a symptom of man’s failure as a thinking animal.
Socialism is just another form of religion, and thus delusional.
My imagination will get me a passport to hell one day.
And the little screaming fact that sounds through all history: repression works only to strengthen and knit the repressed.
A journey is like marriage. The certain way to be wrong is to think you control it.
Well, I remember this girl. I am not whole without her. I am not alive without her. When she was with me I was more alive than I have ever been, and not only when she was pleasant either. Even when we were fighting I was whole.
I’ve always tried out my material on my dogs first. Years ago, when my red setter chewed up the manuscript of ‘Of Mice and Men,’ I said at the time that the dog must have been an excellent literary critic.
When two people meet, each one is changed by the other so you’ve got two new people.
I got you to look after me, and you got me to look after you, and that’s why.