The worst thing to happen to Lincoln - aside from the unfortunate incident at Ford's theatre - was to fall into the hands of Carl Sandburg.

For the average American, freedom of speech is simply the freedom to repeat what everyone else is saying and no more.

I believe there's something very salutary in, say, beating up a gay-bashing policeman. Preferably one fights through the courts, through the laws, through education, but if at a neighborhood level violence is necessary, I'm all for violence. It's the only thing Americans understand.

Realism has always been called cynicism.

There is only one party in the United States, the Property Party...and it has two right wings: Republican and Democrat. Republicans are a bit stupider, more rigid, more doctrinaire in their laissez-faire capitalism than the Democrats, who are cuter, prettier, a bit more corrupt - until recently... and more willing than the Republicans to make small adjustments when the poor, the black, the anti-imperialists get out of hand. But, essentially, there is no difference between the two parties.

How marvelous books are, crossing worlds and centuries, defeating ignorance and, finally, cruel time itself.

What is there to say, finally, except that pain is bad and pleasure good, life all, death nothing.