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

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).

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.

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.

Jane, I never meant to wound you thus...Will you ever forgive me?"Reader, I forgave him at the moment and on the spot.

Once people get hung up on theology, they've lost sanity forever. More people have been killed in the name of Jesus Christ than any other name in the history of the world.

There is but one art to omit.

Don't say you're going to stop eating red meat when you like red meat.

The world is full of people who are waiting for someone to come along and motivate them to be the kind of people they wish they could be. The problem is that no one is coming to the rescue.

As many suffer from too much as too little.

Better not be a hero than work oneself up into heroism by shouting lies.

I'm really attracted to authors who take on really tricky material with a very open mind and take a subject matter that you wouldn't think would be a comedy.

In order to represent life on the stage, we must rub elbows with life, live ourselves

Sanity is very rare; every man almost and every woman has a dash of madness.