A curious thing about written literature: It is about four thousand years old, but we have no way of knowing whether four thousand years constitutes senility or the maiden blush of youth.

The Bible is not man's word about God, but God's word about man.

Every artist joins a conversation that's been going on for generations, even millennia, before he or she joins the scene.

Self knowledge is always bad news.

Nothing is loathsomer than the self-loathing of a self one loathes.

All men are loyal, but their objects of allegiance are at best approximate.

Is man a savage at heart, skinned o'er with fragile Manners? Or is savagery but a faint taint in the natural man's gentility, which erupts now and again like pimples on an angel's arse?