The majority of American writers today have chosen passive non-resistance to things as they are, producing sloughs of poetry about their personal angst and anomie, cascades of short stories and rivers of novels obsessed with the nuances of domestic relationships - suburban hanky-panky - chic boutique shopping mall literary soap opera. When they do speak out on matters of controversy they attack not the evils of our time but fellow writers who may insist on complaining.

For myself I hold no preferences among flowers, so long as they are wild, free, spontaneous. Bricks to all greenhouses! Black thumb and cutworm to the potted plant!

All we have, it seems to me, is the beauty of art and nature and life, and the love which that beauty inspires.

Life is too tragic for sadness: Let us rejoice.

In history-as-politics, the 'future' is that vacuum in time waiting to be filled with the antics of statesmen.

I always write with my .357 magnum handy. Why? Well, you never know when God may try to interfere.

There has never yet been a human society worthy of the name of civilization. Civilization remains a remote ideal.