Everything about Christianity is contained in the pathetic image of 'the flock.

The one thing that the racist can never manage is anything like discrimination: he is indiscriminate by definition.

[P]erhaps you notice how the denial is so often the preface to the justification.

What is your idea of earthly happiness? To be vindicated in my own lifetime.

How is the United States at once the most conservative and commercial AND the most revolutionary society on Earth?

I try to deny myself any illusions or delusions, and I think that this perhaps entitles me to try and deny the same to others, at least as long as they refuse to keep their fantasies to themselves.

We live only a few conscious decades, and we fret ourselves enough for several lifetimes.

Cheap booze is a false economy.

Never ask while you are doing it if what you are doing is fun. Don't introduce even your most reliably witty acquaintance as someone who will set the table on a roar.

What do you most value in your friends?Their continued existence.

th. Closely followed—in view of the overall shortage of time—by patience.

This advice, although good, was totally inapplicable to my case.

Is every writer's keyboard a spill magnet?

their anxiety, justified or not, was genuine,

It's not the sort of thing one asks of a friend. He hasn't offered, and I will not ask it. I will not tear him that way. I am trying to let go. I don't know how.

I am not afraid of retaliations. I don't have kids. I don't have a wife, no car, no credit. It may seem pompous, but I'd rather die standing than live on my knees.

I think when you take off that jacket and they see that ‘I LOVE GRANDMA’ T-shirt, they’re going to rip your heart out.

It's important that the United States not forget the lessons of September the 11th, 2001. I assure you, I'm not going to forget them.

Necessity is cruel, but it is the only test of inward strength. Every fool may live according to his own likings.

If Stalin ever told me to urinate, I'm not sure I'd be able to.

Luck never made a man wise.