This world may be only illusion -- but it's the only illusion we've got.

In social affairs, I'm an optimist. I really do believe that our military- industrial civilization will soon collapse.

War: First day in the U.S. Army, the government placed a Bible in my left hand, a bayonet in the other.

To the Technocrats: Have mercy on us. Relax a bit, take time out for simple pleasures. For example, the luxuries of electricity, indoor plumbing, central heating, instant electronic communication and such, have taught me to relearn and enjoy the basic human satisfactions of dipping water from a cold clear mountain stream; of building a wood fire in a cast-iron stove; of using long winter nights for making music, making things, making love; of writing long letters, in longhand with a fountain pen, to the few people on this earth I truly care about.

Beauty is only skin deep; ugliness goes all the way through.

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

Apuleius married a rich widow, then wrote _The Golden Ass_.