“...and the funny thing was that people who weren't entirely certain they were right always argued much louder than other people, as if the main person they were trying to convince were themselves.”

“Some people remember the sixties better than others do. Some weren't even there, some who were there were not really there, and some who were not really there were "really there".”

“Our reputations weren't who we really were, they were who people told us we were. Some of us fell into that trap, while others fought their entire lives to break free of them.”

“Gabe was referring to people like Lou who were competitive. Ambitious people, with their eye on the prize instead of the task at hand. People who wanted to be the best for all the wrong reasons and who'd take almost any path to get there. Being the best was only slightly better than being in the middle, which was equal to being the worst. All were merely a state of being. It was how a person felt in that state and why that was the important thing.Gabe wanted to explain to Lou that people like him were always looking at what the other person was doing, always looking to achieve more and greater things. Always wanting to be better. And the entire point of Gabe's telling Lou Suffern about people like Lou Suffern was to warn him that people who constantly looked over their shoulders often bumped into things.Paths are so much clearer when people stop looking at what everyone else is doing and instead concentrate on themselves.”

“Three-fourths of philosophy and literature is the talk of people trying to convince themselves that they really like the cage they were tricked into entering.”

“Kools and Newports were for black people and lower-class whites. Camels were for procrastinators, those who wrote bad poetry, and those who put off writing bad poetry. Merits were for sex addicts, Salems were for alcoholics, and Mores were for people who considered themselves to be outrageous but really weren't.”