It is so short and jumbled and jangled, Sam, because there is nothing intelligent to say about a massacre. Everybody is supposed to be dead, to never say anything or want anything ever again. Everything is supposed to be very quiet after a massacre, and it always is, except for the birds. And what do the birds say? All there is to say about a massacre, things like "Poo-tee-weet?

Human beings will be happier - not when they cure cancer or get to Mars or eliminate racial prejudice or flush Lake Erie but when they find ways to inhabit primitive communities again. That's my utopia.

As for myself: I had come to the conclusion that there was nothing sacred about myself or about any human being, that we were all machines, doomed to collide and collide and collide.

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

I have no culture, no humane harmony in my brains. I can't live without a culture anymore.

I was hoping to build a country and add to its literature. That's why I served in World War II, and that's why I wrote books.

Nothing in this book is true.