Words may deeply wound us, but we must run that risk to be free.

In those days great teachers at Shortridge [High School] were celebrities. I would look up to them.

Time is liquid. One moment is no more important than any other and all moments quickly run away.

I thought scientists were going to find out exactly how everything worked, and then make it work better. I fully expected that by the time I was twenty-one, some scientist, maybe my brother, would have taken a color photograph of God Almighty—and sold it to Popular Mechanics magazine. Scientific truth was going to make us so happy and comfortable. What actually happened when I was twenty-one was that we dropped scientific truth on Hiroshima.

[Ayres] was our city because we were building it. That's how I felt when I walked around town.

They tell him that there is no why, since the moment simply is and since all of them are trapped in the moment, like bugs in amber.

One of the few good things about modern times: If you die horribly on television, you will not have died in vain. You will have entertained us.