“I said I could and I would. And I did.”
“It is only after one is in trouble that one realizes how little sympathy and kindness there are in the world.”
“To have a good brain the stomach must be cared for.”
“The insane asylum on Blackwell's Island is a human rat-trap. It is easy to get in, but once there it is impossible to get out.”
“A pretty young Hebrew woman spoke so little English I could not get her story except as told by the nurses. They said her name is Sarah Fishbaum, and that her husband put her in the asylum because she had a fondness for other men than himself.”
“I felt sure now that no doctor could tell whether people were insane or not, so long as the case was not violent. Later”
“That was the greatest night of my existence. For a few hours I stood face to face with “self!” I”
“VERY EARLY THE OTHER MORNING I started out, not with the pleasure-seekers, but with those who toil the day long that they may live.”
“Compare this with a criminal, who is given every chance to prove his innocence. Who would not rather be a murderer and take the chance for life than be declared insane, without hope of escape?”
“Art, I suppose, is only for beginners, or else for those resolute dead-enders, who have made up their minds to be content with the ersatz of Suchness, with symbols rather than with what they signify, with the elegantly composed recipe in lieu of actual dinner.”
“Otherwise he’ll always be worrying about what she thinks of him. It’s her eyes on him that make him so afraid of his magic. He’d be much happier and less worried without her around. As would I, frankly. I don’t particularly like dragons who point sharp things at me.”
“Sometimes it’s in the most unsettling moments that the mind has the clearest thoughts.”
“Grandpa Byron's eyes move left and right as he chooses his words. "I tried to. But I think I left it a bit late with your dad. He preferred computers to his own imagination." He looks at me, a bit sadly, I think. "A lot of people do these days.”
“Jody had watched other classmates, including many in college prep, enter such a life with an impatient fatalism. They got pregnant or arrested or simply dropped out. Some boys, more defiant, filled the junkyards with crushed metal. Crosses garlanded with flowers and keepsakes marked roadsides where they'd died. You could see it coming in the smirking yearbook photos they'd left behind.”
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