“I may be called upon to address the company. No one will listen, of course, which is just as well, since I have nothing to say.”

“My idea of good company, Mr. Eliot, is the company of clever, well-informed people who have a great deal of conversation; that is what I call good company.”

“All I can tell you with certainty is that I, for one, have no self, and that I am unwilling or unable to perpetrate upon myself the joke of a self…. What I have instead is a variety of impersonations I can do, and not only of myself — a troupe of players that I have internalised, a permanent company of actors that I can call upon when a self is required…. I am a theater and nothing more than a theater.”

“I may live for thirty years, or perhaps forty, or maybe just one day: therefore I have resolved to use this day, or whatever I have to say in these thirty years or whatever I have to say this one day I may have to live — I have resolved to use it in such a way that if not one day in my whole past life has been used well, this one by the help of God will be. JP VIII 1 A 533”

“He may well speak French and Latin and half a dozen languages, but since he has nothing to say – what good are they?”

“My idea of good company… is the company of clever, well-informed people, who have a great deal of conversation; that is what I call good company.'
'You are mistaken,' said he gently, 'that is not good company, that is the best.”

“Well, then, since you say there will be another life for me, let us both pray I do not make as colossal a mess of it as I have this one.”

“I happened to be in the company of six or seven Baptist elders—how I ever got into such bad company, I don’t know,—and one of them asked what I thought about baptism. Well, I never thought much about it; did not know much about it; didn’t want to say anything, but they insisted upon it. I said, “Well, I’ll give you my opinion—with soap, baptism is a good thing.””

“My friends, this is a wholly unprepared speech. I did not expect to be called upon to say a word when I came here. I supposed I was merely to do something towards raising a flag. I may, therefore, have said something indiscreet, but I have said nothing but what I am willing to live by, and, in the pleasure of Almighty God, die by.”

“What have I to say to the Doctor’s personal abuse? Nothing. A man may call me a devil, or the devil, or he may say that I am incapable of telling the truth, or that I tell lies, and yet all this proves nothing. My arguments remain unanswered. I cannot afford to call Dr. Buckley names, I have good mental manners. The cause I represent (in part) is too great, too sacred, to be stained by an ignorant or a malicious personality.”