If you went through life refusing all the bait dangled in front of you, that would be no life at all. No changes would be made and you would have nothing to fight against. Life would be dull as ditchwater.

the long-distance run of an early morning makes me think that every run like this is a life- a little life, I know- but a life as full of misery and happiness and things happening as you can ever get really around yourself

It's a treat being a runner, out in the world by yourself with not a soul to make you bad-tempered or tell you what to do.

Everybody thinks theyll never get married at your age. You think you can go on all your life being single, but you suddenly find out that you cant.

Walking the streets on winter nights kept him warm, despite the cold nocturnal passions of uprising winds. His footsteps led between trade-marked houses, two up and two down, with digital chimneys like pigs' tits on the rooftops sending up heat and smoke into the cold trough of a windy sky. Stars hid like snipers, taking aim now and again when clouds gave them a loophole. Winter was an easy time for him to hide his secrets, for each dark street patted his shoulder and became a friend, and the gaseous eye of each lamp glowed unwinking as he passed.

Well, it's a good life and a good world, all said and done, if you don't weaken.

You can always rely on a society of equals taking it out on the women.