“Making the best of things is a damn poor way of dealing with them. My life has been a series of escapes from that quicksand.”

“Anyone who says that economic security is a human right, has been to much babied. While he babbles, other men are risking and losing their lives to protect him. They are fighting the sea, fighting the land, fighting disease and insects and weather and space and time, for him, while he chatters that all men have a right to security and that some pagan god—Society, The State, The Government, The Commune—must give it to them. Let the fighting men stop fighting this inhuman earth for one hour, and he will learn how much security there is.”

“Writing fiction is ... an endless and always defeated effort to capture some quality of life without killing it.”

“Happiness is something that comes into our lives through doors we don't even remember leaving open.”

“The greatest good to the greatest number will obviously be reached when each individual of the greatest number is doing the greatest good to himself.”

“You’re so damn strong, Liv, and you don’t even realize it. I’m the one who’s always had to show people I’m successful, an achiever, the best at everything I did. I’m the one who’s always been a goddamn egotist. A groveler. And you…you’re the first person who’s ever…Christ, Liv, sometimes the way you look at me makes me feel like I can hang the fucking moon.”

“hope could betray you—but if you had no hope, life could actuallysurprise you in the best of ways.”