The secret to success in any human endeavor is total concentration.

There is this feeling that I have a destiny far away from the shallow and preposterous posing that is our life.

Shortridge High School was an elitist high school. In a way it was a scandal because you could go there no matter where you lived, if you could get there. It was for over-achievers. It was for people who were going to college. So we were very special and we were hated for being ritzy.

Do I resent rich people? No. The best or worst I can do is notice them. I agree with the great Socialist writer George Orwell, who felt that rich people were poor people with money.

What a bummer it is to be a human being.

Trout was petrified there on Forty-second Street. It had given him a life not worth living, but I had also given him an iron will to live. This was a common combination on the planet Earth.

If it weren't for the people always getting tangled up with the machinery... Earth would be an engineer's paradise.