You know, I think the main purpose of the Army, Navy, and Marine Corps is to get poor Americans into clean, pressed, unpatched clothes, so rich Americans can stand to look at them.

If what Jesus said was good, what can it matter whether he was God or not?

Do you realize that all great literature is all about what a bummer it is to be a human being? Isn't it such a relief to have somebody say that?

in nonsense is strength

Puny man can do nothing at all to help or please God Almighty, and Luck is not the hand of God.

Mere opinions, in fact, were as likely to govern people's actions as hard evidence, and were subject to sudden reversals as hard evidence could never be. So the Galapagos Islands could be hell in one moment and heaven in the next, and Julius Caesar could be a statesman in one moment and a butcher in the next, and Ecuadorian paper money could be traded for food, shelter, and clothing in one moment and line the bottom of a birdcage in the next, and the universe could be created by God Almighty in one moment and by a big explosion in the next--and on and on.

We were into the Speedway. We'd take a train out to the Speedway where farmers had flatbed trucks with bleachers on them. They'd park in the infield and we'd sit on those. Our heroes weren't the drivers, they were the pit crews. That's because we were local, and we knew what was going on.