Here I was at the end of America - no more land - and now there was nowhere to go but back.

But why think about that when all the golden lands ahead of you and all kinds of unforseen events wait lurking to surprise you and make you glad you're alive to see?

I was halfway across America, at the dividing line between the East of my youth and the West of my future.

This is the story of America. Everybody's doing what they think they're supposed to do.

I was suddenly left with nothing in my hands but a handful of crazy stars.

There was nothing to talk about anymore. The only thing to do was go.

We wandered in a frenzy and a dream (301).

Hell man, I know very well you didn't come to me only to want to become a writer, and after all what do I really know about it except that you've got to stick to it with the energy of a benny addict.

...but I preferred reading the American landscape as we went along. Every bump, rise, and stretch in it mystified my longing.

And I said, 'That last thing is what you can't get, Carlo. Nobody can get to that last thing. We keep on living in hopes of catching it once and for all.

I suddenly began to realize that everybody in America is a natural-born thief.

they say life goes on long after the thrill of living

A home is not a mere transient shelter: its essence lies in the personalities of the people who live in it.

At the end, you find the beginning.

Following graduation from Amherst, a Woodrow Wilson Fellowship enabled me to test the depth of my interest in literary scholarship by beginning graduate studies at Harvard University.

What we need to do is to stand up to the big money interests, and the campaign contributors. When we do that, we can, in fact, transform America.

Given the genocidal belligerence of Iranian threats against Israel, it is hard to take issue with Israel's right to preemptive self-defense.

Oh, I steal things all the time. It's just something I do. I stopped caring a long time ago.

I'd ice-skated before, because I'm Canadian and that's what you do as a kid, but I'd never, ever been on quad skates.

Knowing that you do not know is the best. Not knowing that you do not know is an illness.

People have forgotten what the human touch is, what it is to smile, for somebody to smile at them, somebody to recognize them, somebody to wish them well. The terrible thing is to be unwanted.