“Wouldn't take nothing for my journey now.”

“Living well is an art that can be developed: a love of life and ability to take great pleasure from small offerings and assurance that the world owes you nothing and that every gift is exactly that, a gift. ”

“Take the blinders from your visiontake the padding from your earsand confess you've heard me crying and admit you've seen my tears.”

“Without willing it, I had gone from being ignorant of being ignorant to being aware of being aware. And the worst part of my awareness was that I didn't know what I was aware of. I knew I knew very little, but I was certain that the things I had yet to learn wouldn't be taught to me at George Washington High School. ”

“There is nothing so pitiful as a young cynic because he has gone from knowing nothing to believing nothing.”

“Graduation, the hush-hush magic time of frills and gifts and congratulations and diplomas, was finished for me before my name was called. The accomplishment was nothing. The meticulous maps, drawn in three colors of ink, learning and spelling decasyllabic words, memorizing the whole of The Rape of Lucrece - it was for nothing. Donleavy had exposed us.We were maids and farmers, handymen and washerwomen, and anything higher that we aspired to was farcical and presumptuous.”

“Nothing will work unless you do.”