Now THERE'S a hollow state to be in, isn't it — to believe in God and get no sign that He's there. - Joseph Heller

Clevinger was dead. That was the basic flaw in his philosophy.

Nothing fails like success.

I get the willies when I see closed doors. Even at work, where I am doing so well now, the sight of a closed door is sometimes enough to make me dread that something horrible is happening behind it, something that is going to affect me adversely; if I am tired and dejected from a night of lies or booze or sex or just nerves and insomnia, I can almost smell the disaster mounting invisibly and flooding out toward me through the frosted glass panes. My hands may perspire, and my voice may come out strange. I wonder why. Something must have happened to me sometime.