“Now I know I am an intellectual. I saw Malcolm Muggeridge on the television last night, and I understood nearly every word. It all adds up. A bad home, poor diet, not liking punk. I think I will join the library and see what happens.”

“I saw your name in lights last night.It's the middle of the night,and I can't sleep,thinking all my trumpeting thoughts,and I get out of bed,open the curtains,and look into the night full of stars,and you know what I saw?Your name.Like the stars joined up and spelled the word for me.Like a sign.”

“Later the place was as deserted as Malcolm Muggeridge's Christmas party of fellow intellectuals.”

“You want to know what I was thinking?...I was thinking that I wished you'd been with me the last couple of days. I mean, I enjoyed getting to know everyone better. We ate lunch together, and the dinner last night was a lot of fun, but it just felt like something was wrong, like I was missing something. It wasn't until I saw you walking up the beach that I realized it was you.”

“If I am intellectually interdependent, I realize that I need the best thinking of other people to join with my own.”

“She laughed. 'It won't last. Nothing lasts. But I'm happy now.''Happy,' I muttered, trying to pin the word down. But it is one of those words, like Love, that I have never quite understood. Most people who deal in words don't have much faith in them and I am no exception--especially the big ones like Happy and Love and Honest and Strong. They are too elusive and far too relative when you compare them to sharp, mean little words like Punk and Cheap and Phony. I feel at home with these, because they're scrawny and easy to pin, but the big ones are tough and it takes either a priest or a fool to use them with any confidence.”