Terry Southern is the illegitimate son of Mack Sennett and Edna Saint Vincent Millay.

True terror is to wake up one morning and discover that your high school class is running the country.

We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful what we pretend to be.

There is a tragic flaw in our precious constitution, and I don't know what can be done to fix it. This is it: Only nut cases want to be president.

I want to stand as close to the edge as I can without going over. Out on the edge you see all the kinds of things you can't see from the center.

He didn't look like a soldier at all. He looked like a filthy flamingo.

Any reviewer who expresses rage and loathing for a novel is preposterous. He or she is like a person who has put on full armor and attacked a hot fudge sundae.

Perhaps I am the turtle, able to live simply anywhere, even underwater for short periods, with my home on my back.

About astrology and palmistry: they are good because they make people vivid and full of possibilities. They are communism at its best. Everybody has a birthday and almost everybody has a palm.

We are here on Earth to fart around. Don't let anybody tell you any different.

Enjoy your body, use it every way you can. Don’t be afraid of it, or what other people think of it, it’s the greatest instrument you’ll ever own.

One is a painter because one wants so-called freedom one doesn't want to go to the office every morning.

Power is not alluring to pure minds.

Be bored and see where it takes you, because the imagination's dusty wilderness is worth crossing if you want to sculpt your soul.

Lies were like having a pregnant rabbit. One day you had one, but before you knew it, there were rabbits all over the place.

I'll be wearing my high heels, even if I'm up to my knees in mud

We all like to congregate at boundary conditions. Where land meets water. Where earth meets air. Where bodies meet mind. Where space meets time. We like to be on one side, and look at the other.

By listening with calm and understanding, we can ease the suffering of another person.

It was always Marx, Lenin, and revolution - real girl's talk.

There are prophets, there are guides, and there are argumentative people with theories, and one must be careful to discriminate between them.

Improvisation is not the expression of accident but rather of the accumulated yearnings, dreams and wisdom of our very soul.