. . . The books we need are the kind that act upon us like a misfortune, that make us suffer like the death of someone we love more than ourselves, that make us feel as though we were on the verge of suicide, or lost in a forest remote from all human habitation-a book should serve as an axe for the frozen sea within us.

Because of impatience we were driven out [of Paradise]; because of impatience we cannot return.

They say ignorance is bliss.... they're wrong

I do not read advertisements. I would spend all of my time wanting things.

They did not know what we can now guess at, contemplating the course of history: that change begins in the soul before it appears in ordinary existence.

If I didn't have my parents to think about I'd have given in my notice a long time ago, I'd have gone up to the boss and told him just what I think, tell him everything I would, let him know just what I feel. He'd fall right off his desk! And it's a funny sort of business to be sitting up there at your desk, talking down at your subordinates from up there, especially when you have to go right up close because the boss is hard of hearing.

Logic may indeed be unshakeable, but it cannot withstand a man who is determined to live.