It often is a terrible insult to some families if one of the kids turns out to be an artist and that's one way to really shake up the family if you haven't got nerve enough to turn into a homosexual.

Contemplating a purported work of art is a social activity. Either you have a rewarding time, or you don't. You don't have to say why afterward. You don't have to say anything.

The thing my father was proudest of was the Ayres clock at the intersection of Washington Street and Meridian. That made him so happy. Ayres complained because he wouldn't send them a bill. There was stuff my family had done there - particularly my father and grandfather - that was quite permanent and wonderful.

She broke my heart. I didn't like that much. But that was the price. In this world, you get what you pay for.

The nicest veterans in Schenectady, I thought, the kindest and funniest ones, the ones who hated war the most, were the ones who'd really fought.

Mankind flung its advance agents ever outward, ever outward. Eventually it flung them out into space, into the colorless, tasteless, weightless sea of outwardness without end. It flung them like stones.

If you can do no good, at least do no harm.