“...the priests of all these cults, the singers, shouters, prayers and exhorters of Bootstrap-lifting have as their distinguishing characteristic that they do very little lifting at their own bootstraps, and less at any other man's. Now and then you may see one bend and give a delicate tug, of a purely symbolical character: as when the Supreme Pontiff of the Roman Bootstrap-lifters comes once a year to wash the feet of the poor; or when the Sunday-school Superintendent of the Baptist Bootstrap-lifters shakes the hand of one of his Colorado mine-slaves. But for the most part the priests and preachers of Bootstrap-lifting walk haughtily erect, many of them being so swollen with prosperity that they could not reach their bootstraps if they wanted to. Their role in life is to exhort other men to more vigorous efforts at self-elevation, that the agents of the Wholesale Pickpockets' Association may ply their immemorial role with less chance of interference.”

“It’s all right to tell a man to lift himself by his own bootstraps, but it is cruel jest to say to a bootless man that he ought to lift himself by his own bootstraps.”

“But one may say something and yet not be able to do it. Try, for instance, lifting yourself up by the bootstraps.”

“In Wilson's scale of evaluations breakfast rated just after life itself and ahead of the chance of immortality."~ By His Bootstraps / Robert A. Heinlein”

“Wherever you are is always the right place. There is never a need to fix anything, to hitch up the bootstraps of the soul and start at some higher place. Start right where you are.”

“I had a nightmare about beingTrapped in an elevator with a self-made man--He was born with a silver bootstrap in his mouth;He pulled himself up by his spoons.But when he lived in the fraternity,Before he could roll his sleeves up and get anything done,He would pack his laundry into boxesAnd mail it off to his mother and his grandmother--They would wash and iron his clothes, And then mail them back to him.”