Fence straddlers have no balls. In compensation, however, they enjoy a comfortable seat and can retreat swiftly, when danger threatens, to either side of the fence. There is something to be said for every position.

How to Overthrow the System: brew your own beer; kick in your Tee Vee; kill your own beef; build your own cabin and piss off the front porch whenever you bloody well feel like it.

Capitalism sounds good in theory but it just doesn't work.

Belief? What do I believe in? I believe in sun. In rock. In the dogma of the sun and the doctrine of the rock. I believe in blood, fire, woman, rivers, eagles, storm, drums, flutes, banjos, and broom-tailed horses.

Every writer has his favorite coterie of enemies: Mine is the East Coast literati -- those prep school playmates and their Ivy League colleagues.

It is not an easy thing to inflate a dog.

But it is a writer's duty to write and speak and record the truth, always the truth, no matter whom may be offended.