Lonely children often have imaginary playmates but I was never lonely; rather, I was solitary, and wanted no company at all other than books and movies, and my own imagination.

Our form of democracy is bribery, on the highest scale.

There's a lot to be said for being nouveau riche, and the Reagans mean to say it all.

The unfed mind devours itself.

We are the United States of Amnesia, we learn nothing because we remember nothing.

Democracy is supposed to give you the feeling of choice, like Painkiller X and Painkiller Y. But they're both just aspirin.

Write something, even if it's just a suicide note.

Persuading the people to vote against their own best interests has been the awesome genius of the American political elite from the beginning.

The four most beautiful words in our common language: I told you so.

You know, I've been around the ruling class all my life, and I've been quite aware of their total contempt for the people of the country.

That loyal retainer of the Chase Manhattan Bank, the American president.

Leaders who are silent and do nothing are as guilty and do worse than those who commit these horrific attacks

I want the reader to feel something is astonishing. Not the 'what happens,' but the way everything happens. These long short story fictions do that best, for me.

It is a grave error to assume that ice cream consumption requires hot weather.

I usually solve problems by letting them devour me.

I don't think I ever really decided I was an artist. I went to college to learn how to think and look at art. In the end, I developed a more sophisticated misunderstanding of art.

Nothing about us without us.

Some history-making is intentional; much of it is accidental.

Characters can be mysterious and you're not really sure which way they might turn at a given point.

I was taught early on in my recovery that, 'Pain is good. Extreme pain is extremely good.'

More needs to be done to take the fight to the enemy and secure our borders against the terrorist threat. We need more protection on land, sea and air.