If I were a younger man, I would write a history of human stupidity; and I would climb to the top of Mount McCabe and lie down on my back with my history for a pillow; and I would take from the ground some of the blue-white poison that makes statues of men; and I would make a statue of myself, lying on my back, grinning horribly, and thumbing my nose at You Know Who.

We could have saved the earth, but we were too damned cheap.

...this is a hard world to be ludicrous in, with so many human beings so reluctant to laugh, so incapable of thought, so eager to believe and snarl and hate.

I'm a painter in my dreams, you know.

To the as-yet-unborn, to all innocent wisps of undifferentiated nothingness: Watch out for life.

[Ayres] was our city because we were building it. That's how I felt when I walked around town.

Everyone now knows how to find the meaning of life within himself.