“There are dozens of young poets and fictioneers most of them a little insane in the tradition of James Joyce, who, however insane they may be, have refused to be genteel and traditional and dull.”

I was brought up to believe that the Christian God wasn’t a scared and compromising public servant, but the creator of the whole merciless truth, and I reckon that training spoiled me – I actually took my teachers seriously!

It is impossible to discourage the real writers – they don’t give a damn what you say, they’re going to write.

Every compulsion is put upon writers to become safe, polite, obedient, and sterile.

Illuminating and making glad again the dark clouds of life. It is the morning and the evening star, that in glad refulgence, there on the awed horizon, call Nature’s hearts to an uplifted rejoicing in God’s marvelous firmament!

There are two insults which no human being will endure: The assertion that he hasn’t a sense of humor, and the doubly impertinent assertion that he has never known trouble.

His name was George F. Babbitt, and . . . he was nimble in the calling of selling houses for more than people could afford to pay.

Damn the great executives, the men of measured merriment, damn the men with careful smiles, damn the men that run the shops, oh, damn their measured merriment.

Winter is not a season in the North Middlewest; it is an industry.

Whatever the misery, he could not regain contentment with a world which, once doubted, became absurd.

People read fiction for emotion-not information

Paris is one of the largest, and certainly it is the pleasantest, of modern American cities.

So that the thrifty and industrious have to pay for the shiftless ne’er-do-weels, then maybe, to save their lazy souls and get some iron into them, a war might be a good thing? Come on, now, tell your real middle name, Mong General!

I think perhaps we want a more conscious life. We’re tired of drudging and sleeping and dying.

She was snatched back from a dream of far countries, and found herself on Main Street.

Cure the evils of Democracy by the evils of Fascism! Funny therapeutics!

What is Love? Listen! It is the rainbow that stands out, in all its glorious many-colored hues.

One man and a dozen fools would govern better than one man alone.

A wave of legislation, introduced in more than two dozen states, would allow people to discriminate against their neighbors.

Every faction conditions its members to think and act a certain way. And most people do it. For most people, it’s not hard to learn, to find a pattern of thought that works and stay that way. But our minds move in a dozen different directions.

Except for half a dozen in each town the citizens are proud of that achievement of ignorance which is so easy to come by.

I had been playing for a while, and I asked Louisville Slugger to send me a dozen flame treated bats. But when I got it, I realized they had sent me a box of ashes.

I write early in the morning, usually after reading portions of at least half a dozen newspapers on the web.

So, half a dozen of us tried – not all of us in history – and we all eventually got in. So, to that extent, it [The History Boys] comes out of my own experience.

Of course there are dozens of meditation techniques, but it all comes down to this – just let it all be. Step over here where it is cool, out of the battle. Why not give it a try?