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.

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

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

She upset Billy simply by being his mother. She made him feel embarrassed and ungrateful and weak because she had gone to so much trouble to give him life, and to keep that life going, and Billy didn't really like life at all.

Moderate giftedness has been made worthless by the printing press and radio and television and satellites and all that. A moderately gifted person who would have been a community treasure a thousand years ago has to give up, has to go into some other line of work, since modern communications put him or her into daily competition with nothing but world's champions.

Oh, God — the lives people try to lead. Oh, God — what a world they try to lead them in.

Live by the harmless untruths that make you brave and kind and healthy and happy.