Our culture runs on coffee and gasoline, the first often tasting like the second.

Too many American authors have a servile streak where their backbone should be. Where's our latest Nobel laureate? More than likely you'll find him in the Rose Garden kissing the First Lady's foot.

The most striking thing about the rich is the gracious democracy of their manners -- and the crude vulgarity of their way of life.

Women who love only women may have a good point.

I despise my own nation most. Because I know it best. Because I still love it, suffering from Hope. For me, that's patrotism.

The rebel is doomed to a violent death. The rest of us can look forward to sedated expiration in a coma inside an oxygen tent, with tubes inserted in every bodily orifice.

The moral duty of the free writer is to begin his work at home: to be a critic of his own community, his own country, his own government, his own culture. The more freedom the writer possesses, the greater the moral obligation to play the role of critic.