There comes a point, in literary objectivity, when the author's self- effacement is hard to distinguish from moral cowardice.

The "terror" of the French Revolution lasted for ten years. The terror that preceded and led to it lasted for a thousand years.

Where all think alike there is little danger of innovation.

Places: a cold, bleak, lonely day on the rim at Muley Point, Utah. And the heart-cracking loveliness of the blood-smeared, bitter, incomprehensible slaughterhouse of a world.

Belief in God? An afterlife? I believe in rock: this apodictic rock beneath my feet.

The sexual revolution transformed the American West: Now even cowboys can get laid.

The tank, the B-52, the fighter-bomber, the state-controlled police and military are the weapons of dictatorship. The rifle is the weapon of democracy. Not for nothing was the revolver called an "equalizer."