“It is not enough to be nice; you have to be good. We are attracted by nice people; but only on the assumption that their niceness is a sign of goodness.”

“You try to be good, to be good and loving and nice and not hard, not tough, a sweet nice girl, not ugly, not full of ugliness, but people make it impossible.”

“Nice isn't the same as good," he said. "People are 'nice' for a million of reasons. 'Nice' is the outside. What people get to see. What you want people to see. 'Good' is the inside. And this is a bad person, C. He's making you a fucking prisoner and your letting him”

“Hope is nice. Fucking useless in this situation, but still nice. You have one sentence before you start bleeding. Make it good.”

“It is really a hard life. Men will not be nice to you if you are not good-looking, and women will not be nice to you if you are.”

“Humankind, or at least American-kind, will lose its edge as we produce more and more pipsqueaks and everyone gets nicer. Whole generations of pipsqueaks will be so fucking nice you won't be able to tell a man from a woman...And it will get worse and worse as people mistake nice for good. HItler was nice, supposedly, most of the time. A lot of good that did...”