Begging is much more difficult than it looks. Contrary to popular belief, it’s a high art form that takes years of dedicated practice to master.

— Sol Luckman

Down below people were clipping by going nowhere fast. You could feel the long despairing history of the place. You could actually hear it, a low hum like the buzz of a sick bee that resonated with the fragments of a million broken dreams.

— Sol Luckman

Finally, we entered Creature County, my imaginary birthplace, where the names of the little winding roads and minuscule mountain communities never failed to inspire me: Hardscrabble, Big Log, Upper, Middle and Lower Pigsty, Chicken Scratch, Centerville, Melville, Dust Rag, Dough Bag, Uranus Ridge, Big Bottom, Hooter Holler, Quick skillet, Buck Wallow, Possum Strut ... We always say a picture speaks a thousand words, but isn’t the opposite equally true?

— Sol Luckman

Flying in his dreams was an exhilarating, breathtaking experience, sometimes literally, that tended to leave reality wanting, like riding a roller coaster compared to mowing the lawn.

— Sol Luckman

Have you ever noticed how good things go to those who hate?

— Sol Luckman

He knew perfectly well (even if he wasn’t inclined to admit it) that the material body had a spiritual aspect. He knew that “spirit,” however explained, was real, because of his own undeniable experiences—which, though he might suppress them, he couldn’t altogether erase from memory.

— Sol Luckman

Home. The word circled comfortably in my mouth like bubble gum, swished around sweetly soft and satisfying. Home. Try saying it aloud to yourself. Home. Isn’t it like taking a bite of something lovely? If only we could eat words.

— Sol Luckman

I am, as it were, the created—a paradox, for all its rhetorical trappings, at the beating heart of our shared human journey, and one I invite you to struggle with just as I have while, day in and day out, word by word and line by line, constructing a fictitious autobiography for myself in these pages.

— Sol Luckman

I just want to live my own life instead of everyone else’s version of it.

— Sol Luckman

I knew I was in deep shit. I didn’t know how deep—just that I still hadn’t touched bottom.

— Sol Luckman