Hell man, I know very well you didn't come to me only to want to become a writer, and after all what do I really know about it except that you've got to stick to it with the energy of a benny addict.

But why think about that when all the golden lands ahead of you and all kinds of unforseen events wait lurking to surprise you and make you glad you're alive to see?

I was halfway across America, at the dividing line between the East of my youth and the West of my future.

This is the story of America. Everybody's doing what they think they're supposed to do.

I was suddenly left with nothing in my hands but a handful of crazy stars.

There was nothing to talk about anymore. The only thing to do was go.

We wandered in a frenzy and a dream (301).

...but I preferred reading the American landscape as we went along. Every bump, rise, and stretch in it mystified my longing.

And I said, 'That last thing is what you can't get, Carlo. Nobody can get to that last thing. We keep on living in hopes of catching it once and for all.

I suddenly began to realize that everybody in America is a natural-born thief.

A pain stabbed my heart, as it did every time I saw a girl I loved who was going the opposite direction in this too-big world.

If you follow a foolish ism, how are you an intelligent being?

I don't need to see the old school to remember it and the teachers there. They changed the way that I've always looked at life and learning.

Words are like Leaves; and where they most abound, Much Fruit of Sense beneath is rarely found.

There are no victories at discount prices.

To lose yourself in righteous service to others can lift your sights and get your mind off personal problems, or at least put them in proper focus.

I want to lie, shipwrecked and comatose, Drinking fresh mango juice. Goldfish shoals, nibbling at my toes. Fun fun fun in the sun sun sun. Fun fun fun in the sun sun sun.

You cannot prepare enough for anything.

Elvis up in Michigan and maybe out in Mars.

I have this almost pathological fear of boring the reader.

If pressed, I would say I feel British. It's where I grew up and where I choose to live, the culture that I love, but I feel perfectly at home in America, I don't feel like a tourist or anything.