For some reason, voters can be brainwashed, and they vote sometimes against their own best interests, let alone voting against the interests of people who need them, like people who are disenfranchised and people who are poor and so forth.

Of our hurts we make monuments of survival. If we survive.

Why should I want what's good for me?' Beatrice asked him, smiling. 'Is that what you want for yourself - only what's good for you?

The punishment – to the body, the brain, the spirit – a man must endure to become even a moderately good boxer is inconceivable to most of us whose idea of personal risk is largely ego-related or emotional.

Art is about freedom of expression, and should not be molded to fit any propaganda or lofty ideal.

A daydreamer is prepared for most things.

There should really not be anything gratuitous in a work of art. Sometimes what seems as if it's gratuitous may be a passage in which a character is being characterized so that the reader comes to know him or her better.