No one can amount to a damn in the arts if he becomes sweetly reasonable, seeing all sides of a picture, forgiving all sins.

Humor is a way of holding off how awful life can be, to protect yourself.

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?

One thing I learned, with permission of the school committee of Indianapolis, was that when a tyrant or a government gets in trouble it wonders what to do. Declare war! Then nothing else matters. It's like chess; when in doubt, castle.

I love you, because the love you gave me was the only love I've ever had, the only love I ever will have

Americans... are forever searching for love in forms it never takes, in places it can never be. It must have something to do with the vanished frontier.

Dance, even if you have nowhere to do it but the living room in your fortified compound.