I no longer gave a sick dog's drop for the wisdom, the reliability and the authority of the public's literary mind, those creeps and old ladies of vested reviewing.

Writing books is the closest men ever come to childbearing.

A modern democracy is a tyranny whose borders are undefined; one discovers how far one can go only by traveling in a straight line until one is stopped.

The function of socialism is to raise suffering to a higher level.

Khomeini has offered us the opportunity to regain our frail religion ... faith in the power of words.

There was that law of life, so cruel and so just, that one must grow or else pay more for remaining the same.

Any war that requires the suspension of reason as a necessity for support is a bad war.

America is a hurricane, and the only people who do not hear the sound are those fortunate if incredibly stupid and smug White Protestants who live in the center, in the serene eye of the big wind.

I was thinking that surgeons had to be the happiest people on earth. To cut people up and get paid for it-that's happiness, I told myself.

Love asks us that we be a little braver than is comfortable, a little more generous, a little more flexible. It means living on the edge more than we care to.

Reaching consensus in a group is often confused with finding the right answer.

Out of 100 men, one will read the Bible, the other 99 will read the Christian.

I sit with my knees pulled in tight and my arms wrapped around my shins. I can no longer feel my feet, as if blood refuses to spread so far from my heart.

As I stood behind you, I sensed that God was telling me to pay for your groceries, so I did. Simple as that.

Life is likephotography we develop from the negatives

We could have chopped down the sycamore with this.

Ruin is the destination toward which all men rush, each pursuing his own best interest in a society that believes in the freedom of the commons.

Thank you for the tragedy. I need it for my art.

If you don’t want your life to be 'messed up', don’t fool around with those who have messed up theirs.

Everyone wishes to have truth on his side, but not everyone wishes to be on the side of truth.

Many men know how to flatter, few men know how to praise.