It is impossible not to notice that our world is tormented by failure, hate, guilt, and fear. - William Saroyan

In every house there ought to be an art table on which, one by one, things are placed, so that everybody in that house might look at the things very carefully, and see them.'

'What would you put on a table like that?'

'A leaf. A coin. A button. A stone. A small piece of torn newspaper. An apple. An egg. A pebble. A flower. A dead insect. A shoe.'

'Everybody's seen those things.'

'Of course. But nobody looks at them, and that's what art is. To look at familiar things as if they had never before been seen... A necktie. A pocketknife... a walnut.

I have a faint idea what it is like to be alive.

"All of the sudden," he said, "I feel different — not like I ever felt before. Even when Papa died I didn't feel this way. In two days everything is changed. I'm lonely and I don't now what I'm lonely for"