It seemed clear that wars were not made by generations and their special stupidities, but that wars were made instead by something ignorant in the human heart

But I was used to finding something deadly in things that attracted me; there was always something deadly lurking in anything I wanted, anything I loved.

We are all born equally far from the sun.

There are special, strange gifted people in the world and they have to be treated with understanding

Looking back now across fifteen years I could see with great clarity the fear I had lived in, which must mean that in the interval I had succeeded in a very important undertaking: I must have made my escape from it.

I knew that part of friendship consisted in accepting a friend’s shortcomings, which sometimes included his parents.

Young people in my generation were sort of in lockstep, and it wasn't just the '40s, either. In the '30s and in the '50s it was the same. No one ever dropped out unless he got sick or got kicked out.