“Well, I am going to exercise my prerogative of roaring and show you how fares nobility. Watch me.”

“Show me a man with a tattoo and I'll show you a man with an interesting past.”

“Why didn’t you dare it before? he asked harshly.When I hadn’t a job? When I was starving? When I was just as I am now, as a man, as an artist, the same Martin Eden? That’s the question. I’ve been asking myself for many a day. My brain is the same old brain. And what is puzzling me is why they want me now. Surely they don’t want me for myself, for myself the same olf self they did not want. They must want me for something else, for something that is outside of me, for something that is not I. Shall I tell you what that something is? It is for the recognition I have recieved. That recognition is not I. Then again for the money I have earned and am earnin. But money is not I. And is it for the recognition and money, that you now want me?”

“But I am I. And I won't subordinate my taste to the unanimous judgment of mankind”

“Pray do not interrupt me," he wrote. "I am smiling.”

“Well, Buck my boy.”

“I'd rather sing one wild song and burst my heart with it, than live a thousand years watching my digestion and being afraid of the wet.”