“Jews wait for the Lord, Protestants sing hymns to him, Catholics say mass and eat him.”

“Lord, grant that my work increase knowledge and help other men. Failing that, Lord, grant that it will not lead to man’s destruction. Failing that, Lord, grant that my article in Brain be published before the destruction takes place.”

“People usually told him the same joke two or three times.”

“Lucky is the man who does not secretly believe that every possibility is open to him.”

“For the world is broken, sundered, busted down the middle, self ripped from self and man pasted back together as mythical monster, half angel, half beast, but no man...Some day a man will walk into my office as a ghost or beast or ghost-beast and walk out as a man, which is to say sovereign wanderer, lordly exile, worker and waiter and watcher.”

“I like to eat crawfish and drink beer. That's despair?”

“I have observed that it is no longer possible for one young man to speak unwarily to another not known to him, except in certain sections of the South and West, and certainly not with a book in his hand.”