“A purpose of human life, no matter who is controlling it, is to love whoever is around to be loved.”

“A purpose of human life, no matter who is controlling it, is to love whoever is around to be loved.”

“Yes, and our sister's sons are candid now about a creepy business which used to worry them a lot: They cannot find their mother or their father in their memories anywhere - not anywhere. The goat farmer, whose name is James Carmalt Adams, Jr., said this about it to me, tapping his forehead with his fingertips: "It isn't the museum, it should be." The museums in children's minds, I think, automatically empty themselves in times of utmost horror - to protect the children from eternal grief.”

“‎The America I love still exists at the front desks of our public libraries.”

“Hello babies. Welcome to Earth. It's hot in the summer and cold in the winter. It's round and wet and crowded. On the outside, babies, you've got a hundred years here. There's only one rule that I know of, babies-"God damn it, you've got to be kind.”

“Skyscraper National Park”

“Flashlight beams danced crazily”

“My God, what have they done to you? This isn't a man, it's a broken kite.”

“The 2 prime movers in the Universe are Time and Luck.As the tag line of my favorite dirty joke would have it: "Keep your hat on. We could wind up miles from here.”

“When I used to teach creative writing, I would tell the students to make their characters want something right away even if it's only a glass of water.”

“He was a black hole to anyone who might imagine that he or she was a friend of his.”

“Moderate giftedness has been made worthless by the printing press and radio and television and satellites and all that. A moderately gifted person who would have been a community treasure a thousand years ago has to give up, has to go into some other line of work, since modern communications put him or her into daily competition with nothing but the world's champions.”