“War so conspicuously benefits rich men and kills the poor ones.”

“Poor Congo, barefoot bride of men who took her jewels and promised the Kingdom.”

“A novel! Why do you say this won't liberate anyone? Where does any man go to be free, whether he is poor or rich or even in prison? To Dostoyevsky! To Gogol!”

“the conspicuous consumption of limited resources has yet to be accepted widely as a spiritual error, or even bad manners”

“The war's [World War II] end has left America with loads of get-up-and-go, and no place to go. ”

“We would not wake up from this nightmare to find out it was someone's real life, and for once that someone wasn't just a poor unlucky nobody in a shack you could forget about. It was our life, the only one we were going to have.”

“So one time when I was working in this motel one of the toilets leaked and I had to replace the flapper ball. Here's what it said on the package; I kept it till I knew it by heart: 'Please Note. Parts are included for all installations, but no installation requires all of the parts.' That's kind of my philosophy about men. I don't think there's an installation out there that could use all my parts.”