In all probability the Human Genome Project will, someday, find that I carry some recessive gene for optimism, because despite all my best efforts I still can't scrape together even a couple days of hopelessness. Future scientists will call it the Pollyanna Syndrome, and if forced to guess, I'd say that mine has been a way-long case history of chasing rainbows.

The future is just wasted on some people.

Who you are moment to moment is just a story.

The only reason why we ask other people how their weekend was is so we can tell them about our own weekend.

Telling some stories, Miss Leroy says, is committing suicide.

The first step - especially for young people with energy and drive and talent, but not money - the first step to controlling your world is to control your culture. To model and demonstrate the kind of world you demand to live in. To write the books. Make the music. Shoot the films. Paint the art.

To merely observe your culture without contributing to it seems very close to existing as a ghost.