I was not proud of what I had learned but I never doubted that it was worth knowing.

We must ride this strange torpedo out until the end.

Richard Nixon has never been one of my favorite people anyway. For years I've regarded his existence as a monument to all the rancid genes and broken chromosomes that corrupt the possibilities of the American Dream; he was a foul caricature of himself, a man with no soul, no inner convictions, with the integrity of a hyena and the style of a poison toad. The Nixon I remembered was absolutely humorless; I couldn't imagine him laughing at anything except maybe a paraplegic who wanted to vote Democratic but couldn't quite reach the lever on the voting machine.

Nixon represents that dark, venal and incurably violent side of the American character almost every other country in the world has learned to fear and despise.

Las Vegas is the savage heart of the American Dream.

God's mercy on you degenerate swine.

The greatest mania of all is passion: and I am a natural slave to passion: the balance between my brain and my soul and my body is as wild and delicate as the skin of a Ming vase.