The dog barking at you from behind his master's fence acts for a motive indistinguishable from that of his master when the fence was built.

Do you care about freedom? Dreams may have inspired it, and wishes prompted it, but only war and weapons have made it yours.

We are born of risen apes, not fallen angels.

Aggressiveness is the principal guarantor of survival.

We were born of risen apes, not fallen angels, and the apes were armed killers besides. And so what shall we wonder at? Our murders and massacres and missiles, and our irreconcilable regiments?

Man is a fraction of the animal world. Our history is an afterthought, no more, tacked to an infinite calendar. We are not so unique as we should like to believe.

What could not be denied was that in vast segments of the animal world natural selection of the most qualified individuals took place not by competition for females but by competition for space.

There is a virtue, I must presume, in shamelessness, since by placing on parade the things one does not know, one discovers that no one else knows either.

Human war has been the most successful of our cultural traditions.

The miracle of man is not how far he has sunk but how magnificently he has risen. We are known among the stars by our poems, not our corpses.

A bird does not fly because it has wings; it has wings because it flies.

If time heals all wounds, and a book can hold a person's entire life, then you can speed up the process with a pulp time warp.

The modern human has mastered the art of building toxic homes and cities.

The brave person thinks of himself last of all.

When in doubt, ATTACK!

Abandon the idea that you are ever going to finish.

My tragedy is that all I want is a dog, and yet I have been cursed with cats all my life.

The ability of Americans to toss off oppressive characters is the most rewarding aspect, to me, of U.S. history.

I came in with a completely new perspective. I would write songs and they would pick tunes they felt were in the Purple vein.

I'm not as good as I want to be.

In relation to a writer, most readers believe in the Double Standard: they may be unfaithful to him as often as they like, but he must never, never be unfaithful to them.