“Nothing has saddened me so much in life as the hardness of heart of educated people.”

“Education is transformational. It changes lives. That is why people work so hard to become educated and why education has always been the key to the American Dream, the force that erases arbitrary divisions of race and class and culture and unlocks every person's God-given potential.”

“The tears stream down my cheeks from my unblinking eyes. What makes me weep so? There is nothing saddening here. Perhaps it is liquefied brain.”

“This sense of being out of time has driven thousands of people from their homes into moving-picture theaters where new universes appear before them, with emphasis on man and his major problem: a thing called, conveniently, love. The Sunday midnight shows do a thriving business, and the people go back to their homes, sick with the sickness of frustration; it is this that makes the city so interesting at night: the people emerging from the theaters, smoking cigarettes and looking desperate, wanting much, the precision, the glory, all the loveliness of life: wanting what is finest and getting nothing. It is saddening to see them, but there is mockery in the heart: one walks among them, laughing at oneself and at them, their midnight staring.”

“Real life oppressed me with its novelty so much that I could hardly breathe.”

“No one has ever made me feel like this, no one. So much regret, so much loss, and so much desire all swirled together in my muddled brain. In my muddled heart.”