The railroads are not run for the benefit of the dear public. That cry is nonsense. They are built for men who invest their money and expect to get a fair percentage of the same.

I have had no real gratification or enjoyment of any sort more than my neighbour on the next block who is worth only half a million.

The public be damned. I am working for my stockholders.

The public be damned! (on whether the public should be consulted about luxury trains Aug 1918

Death is not something you get over. It’s the rip that exposes life in a before and after chasm, and all you can do is try to exist as best you can in the after.

If you're not having fun, you're doing it wrong.

The material presence of the work only serves as a conveyer launching an invitation to the observer to take part of the comprehensive game of the thousand and one emotions and visions.

There is no crueler tyranny than that which is perpetuated under the shield of law and in the name of justice.

Literature is an avenue to glory, ever open for those ingenious men who are deprived of honors or of wealth.

Who said we were owed happiness?

What do you do with what you're given, and how do you transform it into something worthwhile?

He wished he could arrange a maiming as a kind of moral lesson

And I don't get down on nobody else for doing whatever else they do. To each his own.

I think you start to prepare the minute you read something.