Loneliness wasn't just a state of mind, was it? It was tactile. She could feel it. It was a sixth sense, not in some fanciful play of words, but physically. It hurt... it hurt like phagocytes devouring the white matter of her brain. Furthermore, it wasn't merely that she had no friends. She didn't even have a sanctuary in which she could simply be alone.

— Tom Wolfe

Love is the ultimate expression of the will to live.

— Tom Wolfe

Nerds... the 'nerd' has never been precisely defined, thanks to the psychological complexity of the creature. The word has connotations of some level of intelligence. The typical nerd is a male with intelligence but no sense of giving it a manly face.

— Tom Wolfe

Once you have speech, you don't have to wait for natural selection! If you want more strength, you build a stealth bomber; if you don't like bacteria, you invent penicillin; if you want to communicate faster, you invent the Internet. Once speech evolved, all of human life changed.

— Tom Wolfe

One belongs to New York instantly, one belongs to it as much in five minutes as in five years.

— Tom Wolfe

Seven thousand of them were indicted and arraigned, and then they entered the maw of the criminal justice system—right here—through the gateway into Gibraltar, where the vans were lined up. That was about 150 new cases, 150 more pumping hearts and morose glares, every week that the courts and the Bronx County District Attorney's Office were open. And to what end? The same stupid, dismal, pathetic, horrifying crimes were committed day in and day out, all the same. What was accomplished by assistant D.A.'s, by any of them, through all this relentless stirring of the muck? The Bronx crumbled and decayed a little more, and a little more blood dried in the cracks. The Doubts! One thing was accomplished for sure. The system was fed, and those vans brought in the chow.

— Tom Wolfe

Sir Gerald Moore: I was at dinner last evening, and halfway through the pudding, this four-year-old child came alone, dragging a little toy cart. And on the cart was a fresh turd. Her own, I suppose. The parents just shook their heads and smiled. I've made a big investment in you, Peter. Time and money, and it's not working. Now, I could just shake my head and smile. But in my house, when a turd appears, we throw it out. We dispose of it. We flush it away. Furthermore, we don't put it on the table and call it caviar.

— Tom Wolfe

That's not the end of the world! This is the time to cut loose! To really learn about everything! To learn about guys, to really get to know them! Really find out what goes on in the world! You just have to let yourself fly for once, without constantly thinking about what you left behind on the ground! You're a genius. Everybody knows that. I'm being sincere, Charlotte. Totally. Now there are other things to learn, and this is the perfect time to do it. Take a chance! That's one reason people go to college! It's not the only reason, but it's a big reason.

— Tom Wolfe

The attitude is we live and let live. This is actually an amazing change in values in a rather short time, and it's an example of freedom from religion.

— Tom Wolfe

The notion that the public accepts or rejects anything in modern art is merely romantic fiction. The game is completed, and the trophies distributed long before the public knows what has happened.

— Tom Wolfe