Why do I write? I write to entertain my friends and to exasperate our enemies. To unfold the folded lie, to record to truth of our time, and, of course, to promote esthetic bliss.

To the intelligent man or woman, life appears infinitely mysterious. But the stupid have an answer for every question.

The duty of a patriot is to protect his country from its government.

May your trails be crooked, winding, lonesome, dangerous, leading to the most amazing view. May your mountains rise into and above the clouds.

I hold no preference among flowers, so long as they are wild, free, spontaneous.

Society is like a stew. If you don't stir it up every once in a while then a layer of scum floats to the top.

A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against his government.

Growth for the sake of growth is the ideology of the cancer cell.

Civilization is a youth with a molotov cocktail in his hand. Culture is the Soviet tank or L.A. cop that guns him down.

Wilderness is not a luxury but a necessity of the human spirit.

There is science, logic, reason; there is thought verified by experience. And then there is California.

How unladylike of you to mention such a thing.

Illiteracy is rampant. People are out of communication.

I don't care how smart a kid you are. The only way you learn what's not right is from experience.

The artist is not a special kind of man, but every man is a special kind of artist.

In all good westerns, the good guy is always a little bit questionable because he kind-of has to make moral judgments.

People have to stop employing illegal immigrants.

Sometimes I think of blogging as finger exercises for a violinist; sometimes I think of it as mulching a garden. It is incredibly useful and helpful to my "real" writing.

In zazen, one is one's present self, what one was, and what one will be, all at once.

Remember, your mind is your greatest asset, so be careful what you put into it.

I'm a bit of a hoarder, so I did tend to buy things and just hang on to them.