After that demonstration everybody was thinking, what's going to happen to these wonderful men who have been so useful to us? We have to give people something to do with life.

Socialism is, in fact, a form of Christianity, people wishing to imitate Christ.

He wanted to talk to them, if he could, to discover whether they had truths about life which he had never heard before. Here is what he hoped new truths might do for him: enable him to laugh at his troubles, to go on living, and to keep out of the North Wing of the Midland County General Hospital, which was for lunatics.

Her face ... was a one-of-a-kind, a surprising variation on a familiar theme - a variation that made observers think, Yes - that would be another very nice way for people to look. What Beatrice had done with her face, actually, was what any plain girl could do. She overlaid it with dignity, suffering, intelligence, and a piquant dash of bitchiness.

Here is a lesson in creative writing. First rule: Do not use semicolons. They are transvestite hermaphrodites representing absolutely nothing. All they do is show you've been to college.

That's one thing Earthlings might learn to do, if they tried hard enough: Ignore the awful times and concentrate on the good ones.

My God, the religious right will not acknowledge what a merciful person Jesus was.