You're going to pass something down no matter what you do or if you do nothing. Even if you let yourself go fallow, the weeds will grow and the brambles. Something will grow.

“Do you take pride in your hurt?” Samuel asked. “Does it make you seem large and tragic?” “I don't know.” “Well, think about it. Maybe you're playing a part on a great stage with only yourself as audience.”

The last clear definite function of men—muscles aching to work, minds aching to create beyond the single need—this is man.

Critics are the eunuchs of literature. They stand by in envious awe while the whole man and his partner demonstrate the art of living.

There's a capacity for appetite... that a whole heaven and earth of cake can't satisfy

I'll be all around in the dark - I'll be everywhere.

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.