“That is my principal objection to life, I think: It's too easy, when alive, to make perfectly horrible mistakes.”

“That's a mistake,' he said. 'You miss an awful lot of life that way. That's why you Yankees are so cold,' he said. 'You think too much. That's why you marry so seldom.”

“If I were a younger man, I would write a history of human stupidity; and I would climb to the top of Mount McCabe and lie down on my back with my history for a pillow; and I would take from the ground some of the blue-white poison that makes statues of men; and I would make a statue of myself, lying on my back, grinning horribly, and thumbing my nose at You Know Who.”

“I just know that there are plenty of people who are in terrible trouble and can't get out. And so I'm impatient with those who think that it's easy for people to get out of trouble.”

“I sing of happiness, he says, and insecurity shows through--poisons it. I sing of unhappiness, and it spoils that, too, because my real unhappiness isn't great or noble but cheap--money unhappiness.--"$10,000 a Year, Easy”

“I think I am trying to make my head as empty as it was when I was born onto this damaged planet fifty years ago. I suspect that this is something most white Americans and nonwhite Americans who imitate white Americans, should do. The things other people have put into my head, at any rate, do not fit together nicely, are often useless and ugly, are out of proportion with one another, are out of proportion with life as it really is outside my head.”

“(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”