Slavery was never abolished, it was only extended to include all the colors.

Thanksgiving. It proved you had survived another year with its wars, inflation, unemployment, smog, presidents. It was a grand neurotic gathering of clans: loud drunks, grandmothers, sisters, aunts, screaming children, would-be suicides. And don't forget indigestion. I wasn't different from anyone else: There sat the 18-pound bird on my sink, dead, plucked, totally disemboweled. Iris would roast it for me.

Don't fight your demons. Your demons are here to teach you lessons. Sit down with your demons and have a drink and a chat and learn their names and talk about the burns on their fingers and scratches on their ankles. Some of them are very nice.

Things get bad for all of us, almost continually, and what we do under the constant stress reveals who/what we are.

bad writing's like bad women: there's just not much you can do about it

whiskey makes the heart beat faster but it sure doesn't help the mind and isn't it funny how you can ache just from the deadly drone of existence?

well, i don't know about you but I'm going to try everything! War, women, travel, marriage, children, the works. [...]. I want to know about things, what makes them work!