It's in the democratic citizen's nature to be like a leaf that doesn't believe in the tree it's part of.

Good literature makes your head throb heartlike

If you're automatically sure that you know what reality is and who and what is really important - if you want to operate on your default-setting - then you, like me, will not consider possibilities that aren't pointless and annoying.

It can become an exercise in trying to get the reader to like and admire you instead of an exercise in creative art.

There is no such thing as not worshipping. Everybody worships. The only choice we get is what to worship. And an outstanding reason for choosing some sort of God or spiritual-type thing to worship - be it J.C. or Allah, be it Yahweh or the Wiccan mother-goddess or the Four Noble Truths or some infrangible set of ethical principles - is that pretty much anything else you worship will eat you alive.

Worship your body, beauty, and sexual allure and you will die a million deaths before they finally grieve you.

You get to consciously decide what has meaning and what doesn't. You get to decide what to worship.