“You had to deal every day with people who were foolish and lazy and untruthful and downright unpleasant, and you could certainly end up thinking that the world would be considerably improved if you gave them a slap.”

“If an idiot were to tell you the same story every day for a year, you would end by believing it.”

“It's true that all the men you knew were dealers
who said they were through with dealing
Every time you gave them shelter.
I know that kind of man
It's hard to hold the hand of anyone
who is reaching for the sky just to surrender.”

“I think even if they were paid an hourly wage, it’d be quite an improvement from what they get. And you know, I understand the arguments about they’re getting their education paid for, they’re this that and the other, but there are people on academic scholarships that don’t have to deal with any extra rigors. They get their education paid for. And they don’t have to deal with eight hours a day of football, and you know, if you mess up your knee you’ve got to deal with two hours of rehab everyday. So that’s 10 hours of your day gone, and there’s only 24 in a day. So, if they just gave him an hourly wage, even if they gave him 10 bucks, 12 bucks an hour, that’d be a vast improvement over what they got now.”

“I've never had inner turmoil about all this. You find a lot of people these days who cannot stand to be alone. You could lock me up in solitary for weeks on end, and I'd keep myself amused.”

“There was truth and there was untruth, and if you clung to the truth even against the whole world, you were not mad.”

“When people hurt you over and over, think of them like a sand paper. They may scratch and hurt you a bit but in the end, you end up polished and they end up useless ”

“Was it better to think you had lost everything, and to start over? Or easier to know that the people you loved were alive, even if you could never see them again?”

“When two people were in love you had to leave them to it. Especially when you weren't in love and wished that you were. That could embarrass. That could hurt.”

“Work was like a stick. It had two ends. When you worked for the knowing you gave them quality; when you worked for a fool you simply gave him eyewash.”