It was simultaneously refreshing and a bit shocking to see how cavalierly most Aussies toss out slurs and insults about nonwhites.

I think that any time a person comes face-to-face with their own mortality - close enough to Death that they can smell its breath - they have a choice: 1) Fall to pieces; 2) Reassemble yourself and keep walking.

I could have completely lost my mind or became a junkie or abandoned all sense and judgment and committed some rash, stupid act that would have sent me right back into the cage. Instead, I chose to be happy - but not so much for the sake of happiness as for spite.

Here's an easy one: "Race is an entirely social construct." No, it's partially one, depending on how any given society seeks to define it and its implications. But there are basic things such as skin color and hair texture. Even a Martian who'd had no exposure to human "social constructs" would be able to spot those differences. But no Martian, as hard as he tried, could point at a "culture" or to "equality." Those are the social constructs. Those can't be measured in the same way as human DNA.

Hatespeak is usually more honest than lovespeak, and it's always better than doublespeak.

A primary flaw in my psychology is that I'll give people a hundred yards' worth of rope with which to hang themselves, but once they reach that hundred-yard line, I strangle them to death with it.

The idea that the reader is important enough to me that I'd tailor my words to either please or offend them always seems amusingly alien to me.