Books swept me away, this way and that, one after the other; I made endless vows according to their lights for I believed them.

Unless all ages and races of men have been deluded by the same mass hypnotist (who?), there seems to be such a thing as beauty, a grace wholly gratuitous.

Push it. examine all things intensely and relentlessly.

An Eskimo shaman said, Life's greatest danger lies in the fact that man's food consists entirely of souls.

But enough is enough. One turns at last even from glory itself with a sigh of relief. From the depths of mystery, and even from the heights of splendor, we bounce back and hurry for the latitudes of home.

What I call innocence is the spirit's unself-conscious state at any moment of pure devotion to any object. It is at once a receptiveness and total concentration.

Johnston's books are beautifully written and among the funniest I have ever read.