“Don't put one foot in your job and the other in your dream, Ed. Go ahead and quit, or resign yourself to this life. It's just too much of a temptation for fate to split you right up the middle before you've made up your mind which way to go.”

“Swoopers write a story quickly, higgledy-piggledy, crinkum-crankum, any which way. Then they go over it again painstakingly, fixing everything that is just plain awful or doesn’t work. Bashers go one sentence at a time, getting it exactly right before they go on to the next one. When they’re done they’re done.”

“You are being suffocated by tradition... Why don't you say, 'I am going to build a life for myself, for my time, and make it a work of art'? Your life isn't a work of art ---it's a thirdhand Victorian whatnot shelf, complete with someone else's collection of seashells and hand-carved elephants.”

“Is this some kind of joke?""That's for me to know and you to find out.""Maybe you think it's funny to put up signs about people who want to commit suicide.""Are you about to?""And what if I was?""I wouldn't tell you the gorgeous reasons I have discovered for going on living.""What would you do?""I'd ask you to name the rock-bottom price you'd charge to go on living for just one more week.”

“I think you guys are going to have to come up with a lot of wonderful new lies, or people just aren't going to want to go on living.”

“God made mud.God got lonesome.So God said to some of the mud, "Sit up!""See all I've made," said God, "the hills, the sea, thesky, the stars."And I was some of the mud that got to sit up and lookaround.Lucky me, lucky mud.I, mud, sat up and saw what a nice job God had done.Nice going, God.Nobody but you could have done it, God! I certainlycouldn't have.I feel very unimportant compared to You.The only way I can feel the least bit important is tothink of all the mud that didn't even get to sit up andlook around.I got so much, and most mud got so little.Thank you for the honor!Now mud lies down again and goes to sleep.What memories for mud to have!What interesting other kinds of sitting-up mud I met!I loved everything I saw!Good night.I will go to heaven now.I can hardly wait...To find out for certain what my wampeter was...And who was in my karass...And all the good things our karass did for you.Amen.”

“Humor is a way of holding off how awful life can be, to protect yourself. Finally, you get just too tired, and the news is too awful, and humor doesn't work anymore.”