I don't think I ever owned twenty pencils at one time. Wearing down seven number-two pencils is a good day's work.

My father was a deeply sentimental man. And like all sentimental men, he was also very cruel.

Most people never listen.

He knew he would not be afraid. Even if he ever was afraid he knew that he could do it anyway.

But I think the Great DiMaggio would be proud of me today.

But in the night he woke and held her tight as though she were all of life and it was being taken from him. He held her feeling she was all of life there was and it was true.

I spend a hell of a lot of time killing animals and fish so I wouldn't kill myself. When a man is in rebellion against death, as I am in rebellion against death, he gets pleasure out of taking to himself one of the godlike attributes; that of giving it.