“Sorry. Was it awful?”
“Being a rat? No. First it was disorienting. I was suddenly at ankle-level with everyone. I thought I'd drunk a shrinking potion, but I couldn't figure out why I had this urge to chew used gum wrappers.”

“Found something?”
“No, sorry. I thought I had, but, no, it turned out to be, uh… more floor.”

“But I still couldn't figure out what it all meant. The more I found out, the less I understood.”

“I had one experience which gave me some slant on the way large organizations run. I was not allowed to take spherical trigonometry because I'd sprained my ankle. Because I'd sprained my ankle I had an incomplete in gym, phys ed. And the rule was that if you had an incomplete in anything, you were not allowed to take an overload. I argued with some clerical person in the administration office, and was stopped there. It's an experience which I've remembered since, and advised people not to be stopped at the first point.”

“I thought: should I be worried? I was under arrest. In a town where I'd never been before. Apparently for murder. But I knew two things. First, they couldn't prove something had happened if it hadn't happened. And second, I hadn't killed anybody. Not in their town, and not for a long time, anyway.”

“Television is chewing gum for the eyes.”

“As I rolled over, stretching out, my only thought was to go back to the dream I'd been having, which I couldn't remember, other than that it had been good, in that distant, hopeful way unreal things can be.”

“Obviously, it's a great privilege and pleasure to be here at the Yale Law School Sesquicentennial Convocation. And I defy anyone to say that and chew gum at the same time.”

“Perhaps everyone loved someone; I didn't know, I couldn't give much thought to love; in order to travel far you had to be detached, and I had a long road back to the campus before me.”

“I would never be popular. I didn't want to be; I liked being shy. I'd never be the smartest or the hottest or the happiest. By eighth grade you start to figure out your limits.”