I shared a vagrant optimism that some of us were making real progress, that we had taken an honest road, and that the best of us would inevitably make it over the top. At the same time, I felt that the life we were leading was a lost cause, that we were all actor, kidding ourselves on a senseless odyssey. It was the tension between those two poles - a restless idealism on one hand and a sense of impending doom on the other - that kept me going.

Those who fail to learn from the brutal stompings visited on them in the past are doomed to be brutally stomped in the future.

It's a strange world. Some people get rich and others eat sh** and die.

Nixon had the unique ability to make his enemies seem honorable, and we developed a keen sense of fraternity. Some of my best friends have hated Nixon all their lives. My mother hates Nixon, my son hates Nixon, I hate Nixon, and this hatred has brought us together.

Some may never live, but the crazy never die.

Without gambling, I would not exist.

I feel the same way about disco as I do about herpes.