"I sit in one of the dives On Fifty-second Street Uncertain and afraid As the clever hopes expire Of a low dishonest decade"

“Let my epitaph be, "Here lies Joseph, who failed in everything he undertook."”

“My body becomes a raft and there's this part of me that wants just literally to go with the flow. To close my eyes and let it take me. But I know sooner or later I will have to get out, that I need to feel the earth beneath my feet, between my toes - the splinters, the bindi-eyes, the burning sensation of hot dirt, the sting of cuts, the twigs, the bites, the heat, the discomfort, the everything. I need desperately to feel it all, so when something wonderful happens, the contrast will be so massive that I will bottle the impact and keep it for the rest of my life.”

“The writer, like everyone else, is equipped in infancy with a thick padding of things he believes to be true, but which aren't.”

Source : Jon Franklin (1987). “Writing for story: craft secrets of dramatic nonfiction by a two-time Pulitzer Prize winner”, Signet

“I think of myself as experimenting with different ways of structuring pieces. A lot of it has to do with the computer, of course.”

“Never having alone time is real tough on people.”

“He's one of the best power forwards of all-time. I take my hands off to him.”

“Out-worn heart, in a time out-worn, Come clear of the nets of wrong and right; Laugh, heart, again in the grey twilight, Sigh, heart, again in the dew of the morn.”

“The way I see it, being dead is not terribly far off from being on a cruise ship. Most of your time is spent lying on your back. The brain has shut down. The flesh begins to soften. Nothing much new happens, and nothing is expected of you.”

Source : "Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers". Book by Mary Roach, 2003.