I got tired and embarrassed by the constant poverty of those years. I told Doug [ Brinkley] this is really going to be a horrible downer of a book [The Proud Highway] if all it's going to be is about being broke. I didn't like being reminded of desperation at all times.

We came out here to find the American Dream, and now that we're right in the vortex you want to quit ... You must realize that we've found the main nerve." I know," he said. "That's what gives me the Fear.

The Edge... there is no honest way to explain it because the only people who really know where it is are the ones who have gone over.

Jim Harrison is someone I always enjoy, one of the great contemporary writers. I like Tim Ferris' Big Boom Theory. I'm getting into a different kind of reading, not straight novels.

Liberalism itself has failed, and for a pretty good reason. It has been too often compromised by the people who represented it.

Turn the goddam music up! My heart feels like an alligator!

When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro.