Sleep demands of us a guilty immunity. There is not one of us who, given an eternal incognito, a thumbprint nowhere set against our souls, would not … - Djuna Barnes

For most people, life is nasty, brutish, and short; for me, it has simply been nasty and brutish.

There's something evil in me that loves evil and degradation — purity's black backside! That loves honesty with a horrid love; or why have I always gone seeking it at the liar's door?

And once Father Lucas said to me, 'Be simple, Matthew, life is a simple book, and an open book, read and be simple as the beasts in the field; just being miserable isn't enough — you've got to know how.' So I got to thinking and I said to myself, 'This is a terrible thing that Father Lucas has put on me — be simple like the beasts and yet think and harm nobody.