Chase

“I still quote Eugene Debs (1855–1926), late of Terre Haute, Indiana, five times the Socialist Party’s candidate for President, in every speech: “While there is a lower class I am in it, while there is a criminal element I am of it; while there is a soul in prison, I am not free.” In recent years, I’ve found it prudent to say before quoting Debs that he is to be taken seriously. Otherwise many in the audience will start to laugh. They are being nice, not mean, knowing I like to be funny. But it is also a sign of these times that such a moving echo of the Sermon on the Mount can be perceived as outdated, wholly discredited horsecrap. Which it is not.”
― Kurt Vonnegut, Timequake

“This [Ulysses] is obviously the wave of the future, I'm glad I'm dying of tuberculosis.”
― Katherine Mansfield

“We were working on what became Finnegan's Wake, and there was a knock at the door. I didn't hear it, so when Joyce said, "Come in" I wrote down "Come in". I never took it out. It made as much sense as anything else. I like to imagine earnest literary students writing theses on the meaning and implications of that "Come in" in the book.”
― Samuel Beckett (when working as assistant to James Joyce)

“I wonder how many potential Einsteins have been permanently discouraged through competitive examinations and the forced feeding of curricula.”
― Carl Sagan, Broca's Brain: Reflections on the Romance of Science