“He used to think things like, This organic soymilk will make me healthy and that'll make my brain work better and that'll improve my writing. Also things like, The less I eat the less money I spend on publicly owned companies the less pain and suffering will exist in the world. Now he thinks things like, It is impossible to be happy. Why would anyone think that? ”

“I like to think of my behavior in the sixties as a "learning experience." Then again, I like to think of anything stupid I've done as a "learning experience." It makes me feel less stupid.”

“...we got this gift of life and we got it one time and we gonna get hurt in it and be hurt going through it and the only thing that'll make that hurt better or hurt less is love.”

“Why do we always think our pain will be less if we can make others suffer more?”

“If people lived forever—if they never got any older—if they could just go on living in this world, never dying, always healthy—do you think they’d bother to think hard about things, the way were doing now? I mean, we think about its everything, more or less—philosophy, psychology, logic. Religion. Literature. I kinda think, if there were no such thing as death, the complicated thoughts and ideas like that would never come into the world.”

“Less is less. Heartbreak is heartbreak. You think I'm sitting here gloating. Telling myself that my suffering beats yours? Hurt is hurt. You don't measure these things.”