Don't ever tell anybody anything. If you do, you start missing everybody.

I could happily lie down and die sometimes.

Why are you breaking down, incidentally? I mean if you’re able to go into a collapse with all your might, why can’t you use the same energy to stay well and busy?

I privately say to you, old friend... please accept from me this unpretentious bouquet of early-blooming parentheses: (((()))).

She was wearing a canary-yellow two-piece bathing suit, one piece of which she would not actually be needing for another nine or ten years.

It happens to be one of those days when I see everybody in the family, including myself, through the wrong end of a telescope.

I held hands with her all the time...that doesn't sound like much, I realize, but she was terrific to hold hands with. Most girls if you hold hands with them, their goddam hand dies on you, or else they think they have to keep moving their hand all the time, as if they were afraid they'd bore you or something.