But the God I don't believe in is a good God, a just God, a merciful God. He's not the mean and stupid God you make him out to be.

It was miraculous. It was almost no trick at all, he saw, to turn vice into virtue and slander into truth, impotence into abstinence, arrogance into humility, plunder into philanthropy, thievery into honor, blasphemy into wisdom, brutality into patriotism, and sadism into justice. Anybody could do it; it required no brains at all. It merely required no character.

When I grow up I want to be a little boy.

I'd like to see the government get out of war altogether and leave the whole field to private individuals.

If character is destiny, the good are damned.

I couldn't see much point in tying myself down to a middle-aged woman with four children, even though the woman was my wife and the children were my own.

As always occurred when he quarreled over principles in which he believed passionately, he would end up gasping furiously for air and blinking back bitter tears of conviction. There were many principles in which Clevinger believed passionately. He was crazy.