The painting was framed in a misty view of sky, sea, and valley. Newt's painting was small, black, and warty. It consisted of scratches made in a black, gummy impasto. The scratches formed a sort of spider's web, and I wondered if they might not be the sticky nets of human futility hung up on a moonless night to dry.

That's what is was to be young - to be enthusiastic rather than envious about the good work other people could do.

I went to high school in Indianapolis I learned how to walk around looking tough because everybody had to do that. I go out there occasionally and they're still doing it, walking around looking very tough because something might happen.

Here was what Kilgore Trout cried out to me in my father's voice: "Make me young, make me young, make me young!

Human beings are about 1,000 times dumber and meaner than they think they are.

I'm a painter in my dreams, you know.

Literature is the only art in which the audience performs the score.