“She's some kind of Socialist-anarchist-anarcho-syndicalist-Communist. Unless you're one of them you can't tell exactly what any of them are.”

“I am telling you what I know—words have music and if you are a musician you will write to hear them.”

“And to top everything he's got this problem he can't let her know how he feels: What-he's shy? Shy! Tell me who in this goddamn world is shy? Young, old, the lame and halt. Clobber you over the head with what they feel. Oh Man I wish just once in my long fucked-up life someone had come up to me who was too shy to tell me what they thought of me...”

“one day you stepped in snow, the next in mud, water soaked in your boots and froze them at night, it was the next worst thing to pure blizzardry, it was weather that wouldn't let you settle.”

“You want God? Don't look at Scripture, look everywhere, at the planets, the constellations, the universe. Look at a bug, a flea. Look at the manifold wonders of creation, including the Nazis. That's the kind of God you're dealing with.”

“Writing teachers invariably tell students, write about what you know. That's, of course, what you have to do, but on the other hand, how do you know what you know until you've written it? Writing is knowing... I've had very little experience in my life. In fact, I try to avoid experience if I can. Most experience is bad.”

“It is the law of wealth that such people only profit from the money that is taken from them.”