Look at them. There are your true philosophers. I think that Mack and the boys know everything that has ever happened in the world and possibly everything that will happen. I think they survive in this particular world better than other people. In a time when people tear themselves to pieces with ambition and nervousness and covetousness, they are relaxed. All of our so-called successful men are sick men, with bad stomachs, and bad souls, but Mack and the boys are healthy and curiously clean. They can do what they want. They can satisfy their appetites without calling them something else.

And when that crop grew, and was harvested, no man had crumbled a hot clod in his fingers and let the earth sift past his fingertips. No man had touched the seed, or lusted for the growth. Men ate what they had not raised, had no connection with the bread. The land bore under iron, and under iron gradually died; for it was not loved or hated, it had no prayers or curses.

Trips to fairly unknown regions should be made twice; once to make mistakes and once to correct them.

We are lonesome animals. We spend all life trying to be less lonesome.

In literary criticism the critic has no choice but to make over the victim of his attention into something the size and shape of himself.

But a man needs company.

When you're a child you're the center of everything. Everything happens for you. Other people? They're only ghosts furnished for you to talk to.