You can improve your talent, but your talent is a given, a mysterious constant. You must make it the best of its kind.

One's neighbor is always the enemy. That is the nature of things.

Then die. We must all do that. But die, as they say, game.

A huge number of Americans still believe that Saddam Hussein was responsible for 9/11. You have a people that don't know anything about the rest of the world, and you have leaders who lie to them, lie to them, and lie to them.

Which other major religion is based on the Godhead incarnate being whipped, tacked to a cross, stabbed? Only the Marquis de Sade could have made up a sicker religion. It's no wonder that those brought up in such a culture hate life and enjoy inflicting pain. All societies are sick but some are sicker than others. Christian societies are certainly the sickest.

The critics are like tourists who return from a trip saying they've "done" Machu Picchu: "Okay, we've done magical realism," so now we can throw it out.

People have forgotten the effects of prohibition. We have become the United Statesof Amnesia.