“Which is nonsense, for whatever you live is Life. That is something to remember when you meet the old classmate who says, ‘Well now, on our last expedition up the Congo-’ or the one who says, ‘Gee, I got the sweetest little wife and three of the swellest kids ever-’ You must remember it when you sit in hotel lobbies or lean over bars to talk to the bartender or walk down a dark street at night, in early March, and stare into a lighted window. And remember little Susie has adenoids and the bread is probably burned, and turn up the street, for the time has come to hand me down that walking cane, for I got to catch that midnight train, for all my sin is taken away. For whatever you live is life.”
“that no matter how smart you thought you were, you are actually way less smart than that…that you will be way less concerned with that other people think of you when you realize how seldom they do…that it takes great personal courage to appear weak…that everybody is identical in their secret unspoken belief that way deep down they are different from everyone else. That this isn’t necessarily perverse…”