I felt that I was not, never had been and never would be a living part of this overpoweringly solid and deeply meaningful world around me.

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.

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.

What I mean is, I love winter, and when you really love something, then it loves you back, in whatever way it has to love.

I began to know that each morning reasserted the problems of night before, that sleep suspended all but changed nothing, that you couldn’t make yourself over between dawn and dusk.

Sarcasm is the protest of the weak.

You have to do what you think is the right thing, but just make sure it’s the right thing in the long run, and not just for the moment.