“It never seems to occur to such "criminals" that to behave with decency to another human being might also be "gratuitous.”

“The lesson of an American life like my father's... is that achievements are compatible with decency (112).”

“I got in and started the engine, also turning on the radio. When the music began I wished that there might be more switches to turn on, for it was somehow not enough.”

“...between human beings there are only two alternatives, either brotherhood or crime.”

“How should I know why! I didn't invent human beings, Iggy.”

“I would never make a lion, I knew that; but I might pick up a small gain here and there in the attempt.”

“He knew what retributions your devils are liable to bring for the way you treat your wife and women or behave while your father is on his deathbed, what you ought to think of your pleasure, of acting like a cockroach; he had the intelligence for the comparison. He had the intelligence to be sublime. But sublimity can't exist only as a special gift of the few, due to an accident of origin, like being born an albino. If it were, what interest would we have in it?”