This was all he wanted now. Some signs that the immense world would accept him and give him the long time he needed to think all the things that must be thought.

We Earth Men have a talent for ruining big, beautiful things. The only reason we didn't set up hot-dog stands in the midst of the Egyptian temple of Karnak is because it was out of the way and served no large commercial purpose.

You'll be found, your nickels, dimes and Indian-heads fused by electroplating. Abe Lincolns melted into Miss Columbias, eagles plucked raw on the backs of quarters, all run to quicksilver in your jeans. More! Any boy hit by lightning, lift his lid and there on his eyeball, pretty as the Lord's Prayer on a pin, find the last scene the boy ever saw! A box-Brownie photo, by God, of that fire climbing down the sky to blow you like a penny whistle, suck your soul back up along the bright stair!

Out of the nursery into the college and back into the nursery; there’s your intellectual pattern for the past five centuries or more.

You're either in love with what you do, or you're not in love.

Who has more pockets than a magician? A boy. Whose pockets contain *more* than a magicians? A boy's.

You can't try to do things; you simply must do them.