When a condition or a problem becomes too great, humans have the protection of not thinking about it. But it goes inward and minces up with a lot of other things already there and what comes out is discontent and uneasiness, guilt and a compulsion to get something--anything--before it is all gone.

An ocean without unnamed monsters would be like sleep without dreams.

There used to be a thing or a commodity we put great store by. It was called the People. Find out where the People have gone. I don't mean the square-eyed toothpaste-and-hair-dye people or the new-car-or-bust people, or the success-and-coronary people. Maybe they never existed, but if there ever were the People, that's the commodity the Declaration was talking about, and Mr. Lincoln.

A boy gets to be a man when a man is needed. Remember this thing. I have known boys forty years old because there was no need for a man.

And her joy was nearly like sorrow.

There's nothing in the world like that first taste of beer.

And now the forces marshaled around the concept of the group have declared a war of extermination on that preciousness, the mind of man.