“Perhaps I shouldn't call it shit. That's a bit crude. I don't really despise Christianity or even the Roman Church, and certainly not the incontrovertible glory of the Middle Ages. What I do despise is the contemporary inclination to flop to the knees and crawl back into the past, to shy from what seem like impossible problems in order to bury the head, asshole aloft and twitching, in the Sands of Time. Cowardice, I calls it. Illusion-seeking. Womb-crawling. And treason. Desertion in the face of the enemy.Strong words indeed. But I've always been rather a blunt, tough, plain-spoken type . . .”

“The attempt to force human beings to despise themselves is what I call hell.”

“I don't want to have 'carnal knowledge' with any old Zuni, asshole." From the way she seemed to relish the word asshole as it unwound from her lips, I guessed that she rarely used it. It sounded like a mark of esteem, and I was momentarily very jealous of Arthur. I wondered what it might take to get Jane to call me an asshole too.”

“have I not the reason to hate and to despise myself? Indeed I do; and chiefly for not having hated and despised the world enough.”

“Don't be afraid to make an ass of yourself. I do it all the time, and look what I got." (Spoken at a graduation ceremony while holding aloft an honorary doctoral degree from McGill University)”

“I don't really care what it is," he said, "because after everything that's happened in my life, I get to crawl into bed with you every night.”