...the tale that's told for no other reason but companionship, which is another (and my favorite) definition of literature, the tale that's told for companionship and to teach something religious, of religious reverence, about real life, in this real world which literature should (and here does) reflect.

all I wanted to do was sneak out into the night and disappear somewhere, and go and find out what everybody was doing all over the country.

Great things are not accomplished by those who yield to trends and fads and popular opinion.

This is the story of America. Everybody's doing what they think they're supposed to do.

The one thing that we yearn for in our living days, that makes us sigh and groan and undergo sweet nauseas of all kinds, is the remembrance of some lost bliss that was probably experienced in the womb and can only be reproduced (though we hate to admit it) in death. But who wants to die?

...do you think God made the world to amuse himself because he was bored? Because if so he would have to be mean.

Don't tell them too much about your soul. They're waiting for just that.