If a man’s imagination were not so weak, so easily tired, if his capacity for wonder not so limited, he would abandon forever such fantasies of the supernal. He would learn to perceive in water, leaves and silence more than sufficient of the absolute and marvelous, more than enough to console him for the loss of the ancient dream.

Counterpart to the knee-jerk liberal is the new knee-pad conservative, always groveling before the rich and the powerful.

I love America because it is a confused, chaotic mess - and I hope we can keep it this way for at least another thousand years. The permissive society is the free society.

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.

The more fantastic an ideology or theology, the more fanatic its adherents.

The sneakiest form of literary subtlety, in a corrupt society, is to speak the plain truth. The critics will not understand you; the public will not believe you; your fellow writers will shake their heads. Laughter, praise, honors, money, and the love of beautiful girls will be your only reward.

As war and government prove, insanity is the most contagious of diseases.