“I just wrote a book. But don't go and buy it yet, because I don't think it's finished.”

“Never trust anyone completely but God. Love people, but put your full trust only in God.”

“It snows. So I don't even have to go to the pond for fresh water — just reach out the door for a handful of snow. Melt it, and it's sweet as the sky.”

“I don't swear just for the hell of it. Language is a poor enough means of communication. I think we should use all the words we've got. Besides, there are damn few words that anybody understands.Henry Drummond, a character in Inherit the Wind”

“Now go away then, and leave me alone. I don't want any more of your meretricious persiflage.”

“I am quite empty of feeling. I don't care the slightest bit in the world for anybody or anything except myself. But I do care for myself, and I'm going to survive in spite of them all, and I'm going to have my own success without caring the least in the world how I get it. Because I'm cleverer than they are, I'm cunninger than they are, even if I'm weak. I must build myself up proper protections, and entrench myself, and then I'm safe. I can sit inside my glass tower and feel nothing and be touched by nothing, and yet exert my power, my will, through the glass walls of my ego.”

“I don't care. He'll only be painting his own feelings for me, and I don't mind if he does that. I wouldn't have him touch me, not for anything. But if he thinks he can do anything with his owlish arty staring, let him stare. He can make as many empty tubes and corrugations out of me as he likes. It's his funeral. He hated you for what you said: that his tubified art is sentimental and self-important. But of course it's true.”