Explain me to myself, you’ll make me choke on my lunch. Feel sympathy for me, I’ll puke monkey blood on your understated shoes.

I like the construction of sentences and the juxtaposition of words-not just how they sound or what they mean, but even what they look like.

I think more than writers, the major influences on me have been European movies, jazz, and Abstract Expressionism.

We seem to believe it is possible to ward off death by following rules of good grooming.

As technology advances in complexity and scope, fear becomes more primitive.

No sense of the irony of human experience, that we are the highest form of life on earth, and yet ineffably sad because we know what no other animal knows, that we must die.

I've come to think of Europe as a hardcover book, America as the paperback version.

I don’t want your candor. I want your soul in a silver thimble.

What we are reluctant to touch often seems the very fabric of our salvation.

California deserves whatever it gets. Californians invented the concept of life-style. This alone warrants their doom.

A writer takes earnest measures to secure his solitude and then finds endless ways to squander it.

One of the ability of humility is the ability to take the second place without striving for self-promotion

All stories are true. But some of them never happened.

I've always backed energy independence policies, but I've heard from people on this issue like no other. The energy interests of Illinois are far broader and deeper than my North Shore district.

Pulvis et umbra sumsu." ~ Horace, Odes ("We are dust and Shadows")

I want to speak to the despisers of the body. I would not have them learn and teach differently, but merely say farewell to their own bodies-- and thus become silent.

The majority of people who join law enforcement are doing it for good, moral reasons, but then there are the few who get through, where you go, 'Whoa, hold on a second. What's this guy doing here?'

Carrying a grudge is a heavy burden. As you forgive, you will feel the joy of being forgiven.

Freedom is participation in power.

The real secret to investing is that there is no secret to investing.

It's hard enougth to find intelligent life right here in Washington!