I didn't like anybody in that school. I think they knew that. I think that's why they disliked me. I didn't like the way they walked or looked or talked, but I didn't like my mother or father either. I still had the feeling of being surrounded by white empty space. There was always a slight nausea in my stomach.

All a guy needed was a chance. Somebody was alway controlling who got a chance and who didn't.

I had no Freedom. I had nothing.

Banion wondered which was worse - being sodomized by aliens, or having to sit through two hours of Charles Ives.

Meanwhile the 3 a.m. drunks of the world would lay in their beds, trying in vain to sleep, and deserving that rest, if they could find it.

my mother, poor fish, wanting to be happy, beaten two or three times a week, telling me to be happy: "Henry, smile! why don't you ever smile?" and then she would smile, to show me how, and it was the saddest smile I ever saw

but isn't there always one good thing to look back on? think of how many cups of coffee we drank together.