Boy, when you're dead, they really fix you up. I hope to hell when I do die somebody has sense enough to just dump me in the river or something. Anything except sticking me in a goddam cemetery. People coming and putting a bunch of flowers on your stomach on Sunday, and all that crap. Who wants flowers when you're dead?

I don’t think it would have all got me quite so down if just once in a while—just once in a while—there was at least some polite little perfunctory implication that knowledge should lead to wisdom, and that if it doesn't, it's just a disgusting waste of time! But there never is! You never even hear any hints dropped on a campus that wisdom is supposed to be the goal of knowledge. You hardly ever even hear the word 'wisdom' mentioned!

There is a marvelous peace in not publishing ... I like to write. I love to write. But I write just for myself and my own pleasure.

Almost every time somebody gives me a present, it ends up making me sad.

In the first place, you’re way off when you start railing at things and people instead of at yourself.

Then again you may pick up just enough education to hate people who say, 'It's a secret between he and I.'

Did you see more glass?