If you would be unloved and forgotten, be reasonable.

Perhaps some people really are born unhappy. I surely hope not. Speaking for my sister and myself: We were born with the capacity and determination to be utterly happy all the time. Perhaps even in this we were freaks. Hi ho.

Do I resent rich people? No. The best or worst I can do is notice them. I agree with the great Socialist writer George Orwell, who felt that rich people were poor people with money.

The canary bird in the coal mine theory of the arts: artists should be treasured as alarm systems.

Extenuating circumstance to be mentioned on Judgment Day: We never asked to be born in the first place.

This is what i find most encouraging about the writing trades: they allow mediocre people who are patient and industrious to revise their stupidity, to edit themselves into something like intelligence. They also allow lunatics to seem saner than sane.

In the era of big brains, life stories could end up any which way. Look at mine.