“Losers with no imagination say that if you start a new school, there has to be a first day. How come they haven't figure out how to be that? Just think existentially. All you do is take what is supposed to be the first day and bury someplace in the next month. By the time you get around to it a month later, who cares?”

“First month honey. . .Next month pie. . .Third month. . .Get out here and work, you damn bitch, same as I.”

“I haven’t started counting yet. I wonder if it’s just me or if it’s like that for everybody; that every time someone dies you start counting how much time has passed since they’ve been gone. First you count it in minutes, then in hours. You count in days, then weeks, then months. Then one day you realize that you aren’t counting anymore, and you don’t even know when you stopped. That’s the moment they’re gone.”

“You did what you were told or you didn't get paid, and if things went wrong it wasn't your problem. It was the fault of whatever idiot has accepted this message for sending in the first place. No one cared about you, and everyone at headquarters was an idiot. It wasn't your fault, no one listened to you. Headquarters had even started an Employee of the Month scheme to show how much they cared. That was how much they didn't care.”

“First you find out what you have , Dad would say. Then you figure out how to make it work for what you need, 'cause you don't get what you want. You get just what you have and no more. ”

“You start into it, inflamed by an idea, full of hope, full indeed of confidence. If you are properly modest, you will never write it at all, so there has to be one delicious moment when you have thought of something, know just how you are going to write it, rush for a pencil, and start buoyed up with exaltation. You then get into difficulties, don’t see your way out, and finally manage to accomplish more or less what you first meant to accomplish, though losing confidence all the time. Having finished it, you know it is absolutely rotten. A couple of months later, you wonder if it may not be all right after all.”