The past is obdurate.

You might question a winkle - a feeling that came to you right out of the blue - but you didn’t question knowing.

If there's one American belief I hold above all others, it's that those who would set themselves up in judgment on matters of what is "right" and what is "best" should be given no rest; that they should have to defend their behavior most stringently. ... As a nation, we've been through too many fights to preserve our rights of free thought to let them go just because some prude with a highlighter doesn't approve of them

Life was a wheel, its only job was to turn, and it always came back to where it started.

Everyone needs a hobby, he said. And everyone needs a miracle or two, just to prove life is more than just one long trudge from the cradle to the grave.

The shuddering would not stop. The pain was like the end of the world. He thought: There comes a point when the very discussion of pain becomes redundant. No one knows there is pain the size of this in the world. No one. It is like being possessed by demons.

I have no opinion. No, none at all. Opinion is politics, and politics is an evil which has caused many a fellow to be hung while he's still young and pretty.