“In my heart, I knew that only the lucky found that sort of happiness. And I had always run short on luck.”

“I was always lucky in my bad luck.”

“Freedom, I found is not only in the running but in the heart, the mind, the hands.”

“At this rate, I'd be lucky if I wrote a page a day.Then I knew what the problem was.I needed experience.How could I write about life when I'd never had a love affair or a baby or even seen anybody die? A girl I knew had just won a prize for a short story about her adventures among the pygmies in Africa. How could I compete with that sort of thing?”

“I think you are wrong to want a heart. It makes most people unhappy. If you only knew it, you are in luck not to have a heart.”

“My,' she said. 'We're lucky that you found the place.'We're always lucky,' I said and like a fool I did not knock on wood. There was wood everywhere in that apartment to knock on too.”