“I speak gibberish to the civilized world and it replies in kind.”

“You mustn't speak certain kinds of truth, not if you want to go on living.”

“Write to please just one person. If you open a window and make love to the world, so to speak, your story will get pneumonia.”

“(speaking of insecurity)"It's broken greater spirits than ours, and robbed the world of God knows how much beauty. I've seen it happen more times than I like to think about."--"$10,000 A Year, Easy”

“I was goofing around like everybody else in Indiana, and all of a sudden stuff came gushing out. It was disgust with civilization.”

“Future civilizations - better civilizations than this one - are going to judge all men by the extent to which they've been artists. You and I, if some future archaeologist finds our works miraculously preserved in some city dump, will be judged by the quality of our creations. Nothing else about us will matter.”

“I'm afraid I don't read as much as I ought to," said Maggie."We're all afraid of something," Trout replied. "I'm afraid of cancer and rats and Doberman pinschers.”