“They looked shallow, self-absorbed. And a small, strangled part of me envied them.”

“Excuse me, there's no pretense here. I happen to be genuinely self-absorbed and deeply shallow. ”

“For me the most valuable part of this kind of research, however, is just hanging out with the men and women on the job, listening to them, absorbing the atmosphere and attitudes of their world.”

“When I consider the small span of my life absorbed in the eternity of all time, or the small part of space which I can touch or see engulfed by the infinite immensity of spaces that I know not and that know me not, I am frightened and astonished to see myself here instead of there … now instead of then.”

“Envy is a dangerous sin. To envy someone you love is to kill a part of yourself”

“Now that part of his head which nature designed for the reservoir of drink being very shallow, a small quantity of liquor overflowed it and opened the sluices of his heart, so that all the secrets there deposited run out.”