“This is what I think: If you had the nerve to live what you lived, you should have the nerve to write it.”

“My nerves are bad to-night. Yes, bad. Stay with me. 'Speak to me. Why do you never speak? Speak. 'What are you thinking of? What thinking? What? 'I never know what you are thinking. Think.”

“Life is a compromise of what your ego wants to do, what experience tells you to do, and what your nerves let you do.”

“In trying to justify the humanities, as in trying to live a life, what may turn out to matter most is holding one's nerve.”

“I hear you're a writer,' said 2040..."What are you writing about?'Not liking to discuss my writing with strangers, I had been privately auditioning possible conversation stoppers, but I didn't think that I would ever have the nerve to use one. But now, in the most awkward of situations, it seemed appropriate.'Actually, I'm writing a biography,' I responded casually. 'About a man in Alaska who makes foie gras from penguins.”

“I had an alarm, I had nerve gas, I had a yogurt. What more could anyone want?”