“The whole experience of being hit by a bullet is very interesting and I think worth describing in detail.”

“You always, I notice, feel the same when you are under heavy fire - not so much afraid of being hit as afraid because you don't know where you will be hit. You are wondering all the while just where the bullet will nip you, and it gives your whole body a most unpleasant sensitiveness.”

“[M]y Coke hit the floor with a metallic clink, so much like the sound of a bullet casing being dropped.”

“I think... girls have a hard time being interesting. It’s actually easier to be famous, or notorious, than it is to be interesting. In our world, girls climb very well until they hit puberty-sexual maturity-and then they begin to fall out of the tree. They start role-playing instead of thinking, flirting instead of learning. They start admiring how smart the boys are-or how athletic or how handsome-instead of concentrating on their own intelligence.”

“Love can be described as compulsive thinking. Compulsive thinking latches on to details and dwells on them as if they hold enormous significance which cannot be grasped in a moment.”

“I’m not a sociopath or a freak (although I don’t suppose people who are sociopaths or freaks self-identify as such); I just don’t enjoy being with people. People, at least in my experience, rarely say anything interesting to each other. They always talk about their lives and they don’t have very interesting lives. So I get impatient. For some reason I think you should only say something if it’s interesting or absolutely has to be said.”