“No matter what anyone says, suicide takes guts. It's for heroes and martyrs, truly vainglorious men. Archie was none of these. He was a man whose significance in the Greater Scheme of Things could be figured along familiar ratios:Pebble : BeachRaindrop : OceanNeedle : Haystack”

“If "Manners maketh man," as someone saidThen he's the hero of the dayIt takes a man to suffer ignorance and smileBe yourself, no matter what they say."(Englishman in New York)”

“Exactly. You can shoulder all the blame and become a martyr. Provided anyone knows what or who you're martyring for. Or you can accept that some things are important enough to fight for and realize there will be sacrifices along the way.”

“All men are a disappointment. No matter what anyone says.”

“People try to say suicide is the most cowardly act a man could ever commit. I don't think that's true at all. What's cowardly is treating a man so badly that he wants to commit suicide.”

“It is this insistence of man upon meaning that makes him so difficult. Once he realizes that he is of no importance whatever in the vast scheme of the universe, that no possible significance can be attached to his activities, that it does not matter whether he lives or dies, he will become much more … tractable.”