I don't suppose a writing man ever really gets rid of his old crocus-yellow neckties. Sooner or later, I think, they show up in his prose, and there isn't a hell of a lot he can do about it.

But if we come back, if German men come back, if British men come back, and Japs, and French, and all the other men, all of us talking, writing, painting, making movies of heroes, and cockroaches and foxholes and blood, then future generations will always be doomed to future Hitlers. It's never occurred to boys to have contempt for wars, to point to soldiers' pictures in history books, laughing at them. If German boys had learned to be contemptuous of violence, Hitler would have had to take up knitting to keep his ego warm.

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.

If you sat around there long enough and heard all the phonies applauding and all, you got to hate everybody in the world, I swear you did.

It was a very stupid thing to do, I'll admit, but I hardly didn't even know I was doing it.

You never even worried, with Jane, whether your hand was sweaty or not. All you knew was, you were happy. You really were.

I’ll read my books and I’ll drink coffee and I’ll listen to music, and I’ll bolt the door.