“Pete couldn't believe how sanctimonious somebody could be just because they'd once had a soldering iron stuck up their arse.”

“If I had the opportunity, I would make the proposal that no man should be killed except by somebody who knows him well enough for the act to have impact. No death should be like nose blowing. Death is important enough that it should affect the person who causes it.”

“If you read Rite of Passage and enjoy yourself, I couldn't be more pleased. I hope it gets you of.On the other hand, if you should be assigned Rite of Passage, and you start to read it and it doesn't work for you, just put it aside and forget the whole thing. Tell the teacher I said it was okay. Okay?”

“Maturity is the ability to sort the portions of truth from the accepted lies and self-deceptions that you have grown up with.”

“A book isn't a single, static thing with one unarguable meaning. Each reader who comes to it brings his own special knowledge, habits and attitudes. Each reader reads a different book. Each reader imagines a different story.A few years ago, for instance, a friend of my mother's sent me a copy of a test on Rite of Passage that she had given her students. The first question read: "True or False? The theme of Rite of Passage is..." I can't tell you what the presumed themed was, but I can tell you that I didn't recognize it. Beads of sweat leaped out of my forehead. After two more questions, I had to put the test aside. I didn't know the "right" answers.”

“When I am dead, I will not hurt anymore, will it Mama?...When I am dead, build me a little monument of stones in the woods.”

“Classics aren't books that are read for pleasure. Classics are books that are imposed on unwilling students, books that are subjected to analyses of "levels of significance" and other blatt, books that are dead.”