I had taught myself that a human being might as well look for diamond tiaras in the gutter as for rewards and punishments that were fair.

If I should ever die, God forbid, I hope you will say, 'Kurt is up in heaven now.' That's my favorite joke.

Shrapnel was invented by an Englishman of the same name. Don't you wish you could have something named after you?

We don't make bicycles anymore. It's all human relations now. The eggheads sit around trying to figure out new ways for everyone to be happy. Nobody can get fired, no matter what; and if somebody does accidentally make a bicycle, the union accuses us of cruel and inhuman practices and the government confiscates the bicycle for back taxes and gives it to a blind man in Afghanistan.

It's all like an ocean!" cried Dostoevski. I say it's all like cellophane.

I don't know what anybody else in the world would want to thank America for, but man, it [jazz] works. What I like about it - and what public health people ought to like about it - it's safe sex.

The bounties of space, of infinite outwardness, were three: empty heroics, low comedy, and pointless death.