There's almost nothing like native Midwesterner anywhere else in the world, except in Asia. They're miracles all in themselves.

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.

Always and Everywhere a Book Is Waiting for Me

To achieve great things, we must live as though we were never going to die.

The emotional reaction in the peak experience has a special flavor of wonder, of awe, of reverence, of humility and surrender before the experience as before something great.

Kindness is more powerful than compulsion.

Looking and seeing are two different things.

I start to lose my mind if I'm not working on something, like breaking my back on something.

I think it's good to surround yourself with people you care about and that care about you, and you all trust each other, and then you don't have to worry about problems and shitty stuff happening.

Certain music is terrifically inspirational and it is possible, months or even years afterwards, to look at a painting and remember the music that was playing during its execution.

Mothers are the only race of people that speak the same tongue. A mother in Manchuria could converse with a mother in Nebraska and never miss a word.

Lady, with me, with me thy fortune lies.