We are a most solitary people, and we live, repelled by one another, in the gray, outcast cities of Cain.

We cannot live, suffer or die for somebody else, for suffering is too precious to be shared.

Writing is conscience, scruple, and the farming of our ancestors.

Nothing in our times has become so unattractive as virtue.

Man hoards himself when he has nothing to give away.

There are men that are birds, and their raiment is trembling feathers, for they show their souls to everyone and everything that is ungentle or untutored or evil or mockery is as a rude stone cast at them, and they suffer all day long, or as Paul remarks they are slain every moment.

The majority of persons choose their wives with as little prudence as they eat. They see a troll with nothing else to recommend her but a pair of thighs and choice hunkers, and so smart to void their seed that they marry her at once. They imagine they can live in marvelous contentment with handsome feet and ambrosial buttocks. Most men are accredited fools shortly after they leave the womb.