“To become aware of the possibility of the search is to be onto something. Not to be onto something is to be in despair.”

“To become aware of the possibility of the search is to be onto something. Not to be onto something is to be in despair. The movies are onto the search, but they screw it up. The search always ends in despair. They like to show a fellow coming to himself in a strange place-but what does he do? He takes up with the local librarian, sets about proving to the local children what a nice fellow he is, and settles down with a vengeance. In two weeks time he is so sunk in everydayness that he might just as well be dead.”

“Holding onto something that's gone only makes a sickness inside.”

“I have learned to smoke because I need something to hold onto.”

“When you need to hold onto something, you should. Whatever gets you through, take it.”

“Don't be a fool. Don't give up something important to hold onto someone who can't even say they love you.”

“At the beauty of what she had stumbled onto, at the fear that something terrible would happen because she was not vigilant enough. She cried at the fear of something so good that she would not be brave enough to bear it.”

“There ain't no way you can hold onto something that wants to go, you understand? You can only love what you got while you got it.”

“Our natural tendency is to project onto other people our own belief and value systems, in ways in which we are not even aware.”

“All people have religions. It's like we have religion receptors built into our brain cells, or something, and we'll latch onto anything that'll fill that niche for us.”