If being alive is not a virtue, then there is little virtue in virtue.

On their sofas of spice and feathers, the concubines also slept fretfully. In those days the Earth was still flat, and people dreamed often of falling over edges.

Never underestimate how much assistance, how much satisfaction, how much comfort, how much soul and transcendence there might be in a well-made taco and a cold bottle of beer.

You knows dat in New Orleans is not morning 'til dee sun come up.

Birth and death were easy. It was life that was hard.

Death is impatient and thoughtless. It barges into your room when you are right in the middle of something, and it doesn't bother to wipe its boots.

She continued weeping until the heat of her tear water, the sheer velocity of its flow, finally obscured the already vague circumstances of its origins.

salvation is for the feeble, that's what I think. I don't want salvation, I want life, all of life, the miserable as well as the superb.

There is a comfort in conformity, a security in control, that is appealing. There is a thrill in domination, and we are all secretly attracted to violence.

All dreams continue in the beyond.

If you want your tree to produce plenty o' fruit, you've got to cut it back from time to time. Same thing with your neural cells. Some people might call it brain damage. I call it prunin'.

A mistake is a stepping stone to success

Bright colours in the west, giant butterflies dancing as night crept like a cripple toward the east.

You had to learn at a certain age what sarcasm is, you know?

The facile economic and psychological debunking of the theoretical life cannot do away with its irreducible beauties.

If you're not a successful artist it's your fault.

Since 1998, the Administration has begun to upgrade counterintelligence and security at U.S. weapons labs.

Something is always wanting to incomplete fortune. [Lat., Curtae nescio quid semper abest rei.]

The Convention thought it wrong to admit in the Constitution the idea that there could be property in men.

I created no authority that wasn't already there under the constitution.

I came to Hollywood and nobody knew me. I was on a coupla TV shows.