“All you need do, Bernie,she gulped her toast soaked in coffee, is present the truth as fiction.”

“And yet Curts a real writer too. His machinery is stuck, thats all.”

“Curt, my husband, is a writer, and hell never write again. Thats our funeral, as they say down south. Now in your case, my pet, youre married to a phenomenon of our own special epoch, a man who cou...”

“The last human of importance the American people have been able to keep in the working end of their brain is your own Chicago triggerman, Dillinger. After him they kind of lost hold on keeping whos...”

“Hes America in action opposed to quality.”

“But failure has kept Curt at home like a nice warm dachshund.”

“nights and days came and passedand summer and winterand the sun and the windand the rain.and it was good to be a little islanda part of the worldand a world of its ownall surrounded by the bright b...”

“When you drop a glass or a plate to the ground it makes a loud crashing sound. When a window shatters a table leg breaks or when a picture falls off the wall it makes a noise. But as for your heart...”

“A good friend of mine once said, "I have never met a bigot who was a reader as a child.”