“If I had to marry someone, it wouldn't be a bossy little gal with a tongue like barbed-wire and a mind about as narrow.”

“I'd forgotten about it, and now I forgot it again. There are things that have to be forgotten if you want to go on living.”

“I kissed her, a long hard kiss. Because baby didn't know it, but baby was dead, and in a way I couldn't have loved her more.”

“You go into the office and take a book or two from the shelves. You read a few lines, like your life depended on reading 'em right. But you know your life doesn't depend on anything that makes sens...”

“She wasn't much over five feet and a hundred pounds, and she looked a little scrawny around the neck and ankles. But that was all right. It was perfectly all right. The good Lord had known just whe...”

“Youve got forever, but thats no time at all. Youve got forever; and somehow you cant do much with it. Youve got forever; and its a mile wide and an inch deep and full of alligators.”

“Stimulated by the juice, I believe, men have even been known to ride alligators.”

“You dont like to talk to people, do you? I mean, slamming the door in my face was a clue that was hard to miss. Im perceptive like that.”

“Living in a stupid country is living in a marsh! You are surrounded by the reptiles and the alligators! Refusing hell is the best path to eliminate the hell!”

“There used to be days that I thought I was okay, or at least that I was going to be. We'd be hanging out somewhere and everything would just fit right and I would think 'it will be okay if it can j...”

“I want to try with someone who loves me enough to try with me. I want to grow old looking at the same face every morning. I want to grow old looking at the same face every night at the dinner table...”

“Hes dozed off again, but I kiss him awake, which seems to startle him. Then he smiles as if hed be happy to lie there gazing at me forever.”

“It is better to be hated for what you are than to be loved for what you are not.”

“If I am going to be drownedif I am going to be drownedif I am going to be drowned, why, in the name of the seven mad gods who rule the sea, was I allowed to come thus far and contemplate sand and t...”

“I'm an Earth ecstatic, and my creed is simple: All life is sacred, life loves life, and we are capable of improving our behavior toward one another. As basic as that is, for me it's also tonic and ...”