“I heard what you were saying. You - you know nothing of my work. You mean my whole fallacy is wrong. How you ever got to teach a course in anything is totally amazing.”

“Of course, a sign doesn't mean anything unless you know how to interpret it.”

“Always say what you mean and mean what you say. Express how you feel and don’t ever apologize for being real.”

“Do you know what I was smiling at? You wrote down that you were a writer by profession. It sounded to me like the loveliest euphemism I had ever heard. When was writing ever your profession? It's never been anything but your religion.”

“I never said nothing…"
"I know you never! I could hear you not saying anything! You've got the loudest silences I ever did hear from anyone who wasn't dead!”

“She said, "Do you know this Hitler? Have you ever met him?"
I said, "Do I – of course I don't!"
She said, "Well how are you going to know which is him if they do land?"
I said, "Well, I've got a tongue in my head, haven't I?"”

“But if you say: "How am I to know what he means, when I see nothing but the signs he gives?" then I say: "How is he to know what he means, when he has nothing but the signs either?"”

“You wouldn't have taken Rose to such a place, would you?"

"Of course not, but she is a little girl, and I'm-"

"My life", he interrupted quietly. "You're my entire life. If anything ever happens to you, Holly, there is nothing left for me.”

“My friends call me by my name."
"You don't have any friends."
"I don't want you to be my friend, Selia, or my servant, not now. I thought you were both. You have let me know I was wrong. So are you to treat me so. You are wrong.”

“People who take things too literally don't get much of anything from my teaching. By never saying anything I mean, I say a great deal. I never mean anything I say under oath. I never mean exactly what I say. Not even this. You have to read between the words.”