The country and culture commonly known as "America" had had a badly split personality all through its history. Its overt laws were almost always puritanical for a people whose covert behavior tended to be Rabelaisian; its major religions were all Apollonian in varying degrees---its religious revivals were often hysterical in a fashion almost Dionysian.

The worst that can possibly have happened to him is death and that we are all in for---if not this morning, then in days, or weeks, or years at most.

Some people insist that "mediocre" is better than "best." They delight in clipping wings because they themselves can't fly. They despise brains because they have none.

Almost everything about a human creature is ridiculous, except its ability to suffer bravely and die gallantly for whatever it loves and believes in. The validity of that belief, the appropriateness of that love, is irrelevant; it is the bravery and the gallantry that count.

An armed society is a polite society.

There are things which cannot be taught in ten easy lessons, nor popularized for the masses; they take years of skull sweat.

I've found out why people laugh. They laugh because it hurts- because it's the only thing that'll make it stop hurting... I had been told that a 'funny' thing is a thing of goodness. It isn't... The goodness is in the laughing. I grok it is a bravery- and a sharing- against pain and sorrow and defeat.