Mozart, striving for perfection, wrote the same symphony forty-one times. In his case, it worked. He wrote a perfect symphony.

Proverbs save us the trouble of thinking. What we call folk wisdom is often no more than a kind of expedient stupidity.

There are circumstances in which suicide presents a viable option; a workable alternative; the only sensible solution.

The knowledge that refuge is available, when and if needed, makes the silent inferno of the desert more easily bearable. Mountains complement desert as desert complements city, as wilderness complements and completes civilization.

Is there a God? Who knows? Is there an angry unicorn on the dark side of the moon?

In the modern world, all literary art is necessarily political -- especially that which pretends not to be.

Girls, like flowers, bloom but once. But once is enough.