I still don't even know if the sheriff will let me see him. And suppose he did; what then? What do I say to him? Do I know what a man is? Do I know how a man is supposed to die? I'm still trying to find out how a man should live. Am I supposed to tell someone how to die who has never lived?

Anytime a child is born, the old people look in his face and ask him if he's the One.

We all have much more in common than we have difference. I would say that about people all over the world. They don't know how much in common that they have

I knew I wanted to be a writer and I knew if I had a wife and family, I would neglect something, and I was afraid it wouldn't be the writing.

I want you to show them the difference between what they think you are and what you can be.

Sometimes you got to hurt something to help something. Sometimes you have to plow under one thing in order for something else to grow.

"What for?" I said. "What for, Tante Lou? He treated me the same way he treated her. He wants me to feel guilty, just as he wants her to feel guilty. Well, I'm not feeling guilty, Tante Lou. I didn't put him there. I do everything I know how to do to keep people like him from going there. He's not going to make me feel guilty."