If you would be unloved and forgotten, be reasonable.

The library is full of stories of supposed triumphs which makes me very suspicious of it. It's misleading for people to read about great successes, since even for middle-class and upper-class white people, in my experience, failure is the norm.

The waitress brought me another drink. She wanted to light my hurricane lamp again. I wouldn't let her. "Can you see anything in the dark, with your sunglasses on?" she asked me. "The big show is inside my head," I said.

But he is tired. He puts the pistol to his head again. He says, “I never asked to be born in the first place.

Wake up, you idiots! Whatever made you think that money was so valuable?

One of [ways being lucky] was to go to school during the Great Depression because teaching became a plum job.

You can't help it but you were born without a heart. At least you tried to believe what the people with hearts believed — so you were a good man just the same.