Laughter and tears are both responses to frustration and exhaustion. I myself prefer to laugh, since there is less cleaning up to do afterward.

I have had all I can stand of not taking myself seriously.

In those days great teachers at Shortridge [High School] were celebrities. I would look up to them.

I am of course a skeptic about the divinity of Christ and a scorner of the notion that there is a God who cares how we are or what we do.

I'm not a drug salesman. I'm a writer." "What makes you think a writer isn't a drug salesman?

Since Alice had never received any religious instruction, and since she had led a blameless life, she never thought of her awful luck as being anything but accidents in a very busy place. Good for her.

The smartest people in Indianapolis became teachers [during the Great Depression]. And, for once, there was something for women to do because teaching was regarded as a woman's profession, like nursing. So the smartest women in town - Jesus, my women teachers were so exciting.