It has always been my private conviction that any man who puts his intelligence up against a fish and loses had it coming.

There are several kinds of love. One is a selfish, mean, grasping, egotistical thing which uses love for self-importance. This is the ugly and crippling kind. The other is an outpouring of everything good in you — of kindness and consideration and respect — not only the social respect of manners but the greater respect which is recognition of another person as unique and valuable. The first kind can make you sick and small and weak but the second can release in you strength, and courage and goodness and even wisdom you didn’t know you had.

Maybe ever'body in the whole damn world is scared of each other.

You must not forget that a monster is only a variation, and that to a monster the norm is monstrous.

When two people meet, each one is changed by the other so you've got two new people.

In Spanish there is a word for which I can't find a counterword in English. It is the verb VACILAR... It does not mean vacillating at all. If one is vacilando, he is going somewhere, but does not greatly care whether or not he gets there, although he has direction.

I'm back with my own kind of people here now, the bums and drinkers and no goods and it is a fine thing.