“Everybody is born so that they can learn to live a good life-like loving everybody and being nice, right? Well animals already know how to do that, so they don't have to live so long”

“What can you do when you don't fit in? What can you do when life seems to be passing you by?""Follow me. I want to show you something. See the horizon over there? See how big this world is? See how much room there is for everybody? Have you ever seen any other worlds?""No.""As far as you know, this is the only world there is, right?""Right.""There are no other worlds for you to live in, right?""Right.""You were born to live in this world, right?""Right.""WELL LIVE IN IT THEN! Five cents please.”

“That would be all nice and simple, wouldn't it? Be good and go to heaven; be bad and go to hell. Black and white. Rules to live by, to keep everybody civilized. But life isn't simple, so I don't know why we expect death to be. What there is . . . is continued existence. Complex, multilayered, and unique to every individual. Just like life is.”

“I don't trust men everybody likes. Being nice isn't the same as being good.”

“A man ought to live so that everybody will know he is a Christian.”

“There isn't going to be any turning point. ... There isn't going to be any next-month-it'll-be-better, next fucking year, next fucking life. You don't have any time to wait for. You just got to look around you and say, "So this is it. This is really all there is to it. This little thing." Everybody needing such little things and they can't get them. Everybody needing just a little ... confidence from somebody else and they can't get it. Everybody, everybody fighting to protect their little feelings. Everybody, you know, like reaching out tentatively but drawing back. It's so shallow and seems so ... fucking ... it seems like such a shame. It's so close to being like really right and good and open and amorphous and giving and everything. But it's not. And it ain't gonna be.September 1969quoted in "The New Yorker" 9 August 1999”