A ham sandwich is better than nothing. Nothing is better than eternal happiness. So eternal happiness is beaten by a ham sandwich.

I do not understand why, when I ask for grilled lobster in a restaurant, I'm never served a cooked telephone.

If no one responds to your call, then go your own way alone.

Don't use the phone. People are never ready to answer it. Use poetry.

call m-m-me.” Then there was a long pause and he said, “If n-n-nobody answers…” another pause, “…it’s m-me!

The only thing nicer than a phone that didn't ring all the time (or indeed at all) was six phones that didn't ring all the time (or indeed at all).

The telephone becomes an instrument of torture in the demonic hands of a beloved who doesn't call.

The more Susan waited, the more the doorbell didn't ring. Or the phone.

The more Susan waited, the more the doorbell didn't ring. Or the phone.

But no one came. Because no one ever does.

I hate the telephone. I think the lowest circle of hell is reserved for Alexander Graham Bell.

But nobody did come, because nobody does;

This is my letter to the world
That never wrote to me

"It is the phenomenon somethings called "alienation from self." In its advanced stages, we no longer answer the telephone, because someone might want something; that we could say no without drowning in self-reproach is an idea alien to this game. Every encounter demands too much, tears the nerves, drains the will, and the specter of something as small as an unanswered letter arouses such disproportionate guilt that answering it becomes out of the question. To assign unanswered letters their proper weight, to free us from the expectations of others, to give us back to ourselves - there lies the great, the singular power of self-respect. Without it, one eventually discovers the final turn of the screw: one runs away to find oneself, and finds no one at home."