Words weren't dull, words were things that could make your mind hum. If you read them and let yourself feel the magic, you could live without pain, with hope, no matter what happened to you.

What a weary time those years were - to have the desire and the need to live but not the ability.

I had noticed that both in the very poor and very rich extremes of society the mad were often allowed to mingle freely.

No wonder men robbed banks. There were too many demeaning jobs. Why the hell wasn’t I a superior court judge or a concert pianist? Because it took training and training cost money. But I didn’t want to be anything anyhow. And I was certainly succeeding.

I hated them. I hated their beauy, their untroublet youth, and as I watched them dance through the magic colored pools of light, holding each other, feeling so good, little unscathed children, temporarily in luck, I hated them because they had something I had not yet had, and I said to myself, I said to myself again, someday I will be as happy as any of you, you will see.

All a guy needed was a chance. Somebody was always controlling who got a chance and who didn't.

His mother made him stick his nose into a book and keep it there. She made him read all of his school books over and over, page after page. "He must pass his exams," she told me. It never occurred to her that maybe the books were wrong. Or that maybe it didn't matter.