As a confirmed melancholic, I can testify that the best and maybe only antidote for melancholia is action. However, like most melancholics, I suffer also from sloth.

All living things on earth are kindred.

Shakespeare wrote great poetry and preposterous plays. Who really cares, for example, which petty tyrant rules Milan? Or who succeeds to the throne of Denmark? Or why the barons ganged up on Richard II?

Women: We cannot love them all. But we must try.

Our big social institutions do not reflect human nature; they distort it.

All serious writers want the obvious rewards: fame, money, women, love -- and most of all, an audience!

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