“Now I pass up about twenty-five or thirty thousand of honest gain because I like being a detective, like the work. And liking work makes you want to do it as well as you can. Otherwise there’d be no sense to it. That’s the fix I am in. I don’t know anything else, don’t enjoy anything else, don’t want to know or enjoy anything else. You can’t weight that against any sum of money. Money’s good stuff. I haven’t anything against it.”

“I read because I like it. It passes the time and it sucks you in so you don’t have to think about anything else.”

“Dear Lord,' he said. 'let me be like Aron. Don’t make me mean. I don’t want to be. If you will let everybody like me, why, I’ll give you anything in the world, and if I haven’t got it, why, I’ll go for to get it. I don’t want to be mean. I don’t want to be lonely. For Jesus’ sake, Amen.”

“But knowing what I don’t want to do doesn’t help me figure out what I do want to do. I could do just about anything if somebody made me. But I don’t have an image of the one thing I really want to do. That’s my problem now. I can’t find the image.”

“Hey, it’s-!”“Who? Oh. Oh.”“Shut up.”“I haven’t said anything yet!”“Don’t.”“How can I shut up if I haven’t said anything?”“I know you. You’ve got a monologue coming up.”

“It is up to the school more than anything else to work against barbarism. ... By barbarism, I do not mean the Beatles.”