I'm not afraid to compete. It's just the opposite. Don't you see that? I'm afraid I will compete — that's what scares me. That's why I quit the Theatre Department. Just because I'm so horribly conditioned to accept everybody else's values, and just because I like applause and people to rave about me, doesn't make it right. I'm ashamed of it. I'm sick of it. I'm sick of not having the courage to be an absolute nobody. I'm sick of myself and everybody else that wants to make some kind of a splash.

Know your true measurements and dress your mind accordingly

He once told Allie and I that if he'd had to shoot anybody, he wouldn't've known which direction to shoot in. He said the Army was practically as full of bastards as the Nazis were.

Just go to bed, now. Quickly. Quickly and slowly.

Its really hard to be roommates with people if your suitcases are much better than theirs.

I feel overwhelmingly grateful to them, but I don't know what to do with their invisible gifts.

She wrote to him fairly regularly, from a paradise of triple exclamation points and inaccurate observations.