For it is the business of Ethics, I must insist, not only to obtain true results, but also to find valid reasons for them.

....it seems to me that a pleasurable Contemplation of Beauty has certainly an immeasurably greater value than mere Consciousness of Pleasure.

...fiction is as useful as truth, for giving us matter, upon which to exercise the judgment of value.

...if good is defined as something else, it is then impossible either to prove that any other definition is wrong or even to deny such definition.

Good, then, is indefinable....

I don't want to settle down because God has satisfied me and heard my prayers. I want to stay hungry and thirsty for the things of God.

I walk the darkness with a smile.

Did you hear about Katie Parkinson? ... She's going out with Christopher... They've been kissing.""It was like a Semtex explosion in my brain. I did not know whether to cry or run away.

I believe patriotism comes from the heart. Patriotism is voluntary. It is a feeling of loyalty and allegiance that is the result of knowledge and belief.

I always individuate myself from other writers who say they would die if they couldn't write. For me, I'd die if I couldn't read.

All I ever wanted to do was play the drums; I felt good about myself when I played the drums. So I worked anywhere and everywhere I could lug my drums in.

If you work in Chicago in the improv scene, anyone is happy for you if you get a job.

Language is one of the thin walls humanity has built up over centuries against its own bestial and destructive impulses.

A soul untried by sorrows is good for nothing.

Everybody knows that there's a liberal, that there's a heavy liberal persuasion among correspondents.