“We use such big words to move nowhere.”

“For those who believe in God, most of the big questions are answered. But for those of us who can't readily accept the God formula, the big answers don't remain stone-written. We adjust to new conditions and discoveries. We are pliable. Love need not be a command nor faith a dictum. I am my own god. We are here to unlearn the teachings of the church, state, and our educational system. We are here to drink beer. We are here to kill war. We are here to laugh at the odds and live our lives so well that Death will tremble to take us.”

“There is nothing that teaches you more than regroupingafter failure and moving on. Yet most people are stricken withfear. They fear failure so much that they fail. They are tooconditioned, too used to being told what to do. It begins withthe family, runs through school and goes into the businessworld.”

“It was sad, it was sad, it was sad. When Betty came back we didn't sing or laugh, or even argue. We sat drinking in the dark, smoking cigarettes, and when we went to sleep, I didn't put my feet on her body or she on mine like we used to. We slept without touching. We had both been robbed.”

“I wasn’t going anywhere and neither was the rest of the world. We were all just hanging around waiting to die and meanwhile doing little things to fill the space. Some of use weren’t even doing little things. We were vegetables.”

“we were in her big oakbedfacing southso much of the rest of thetimethat I memorizedeach wrinkle in thedrapesand especiallyall the cracks in theceiling.I used to play games withher with that ceiling."see those cracks upthere?""where?""look where I'm pointing...""o.k.""now, see those cracks, see the pattern? it forms and image. do you seewhat it is?""umm, umm ...""go on, what is it?""I know! It's a man on top of a woman!""wrong. it's a flamingo standingby a stream.". . . we finally got free ofone another.it's sad but it'sstandard operating procedure(I am constantly confused bythe lack of durability in humanaffairs).I suppose the parting wasunhappymaybe even ugly.it's been 3 or 4 years nowand I wonder if sheever thinks ofme, of what I am doing?”

“There was no sense to life, to the structure of things. D.H. Lawrence had known that. You needed love, but not the kind of love most people used and were used up by. Old D.H. had known something. His buddy Huxley was just an intellectual fidget, but what a marvelous one. Better than G.B. Shaw with that hard keel of a mind always scraping bottom, his labored wit finally only a task, a burden on himself, preventing him from really feeling anything, his brilliant speech finally a bore, scraping the mind and the sensibilities. It was good to read them all though. It made you realize that thoughts and words could be fascinating, if finally useless.”