American culture is torn between our long romance with violence and our terror of the devastation wrought by war and crime and environmental havoc.

My worst is all out in the open. It makes it necessary for people to tell you about themselves.

In our struggle to restrain the violence and contain the damage, we tend to forget that the human capacity for aggression is more than a monstrous defect, that it is also a crucial survival tool.

In my next life, I plan to be a more respectable creature. For now, this is what is given to us. So I don't know - I think we're all freaks at heart. I think some people strive desperately to be normal, and I think other people strive to be abnormal.

Prior to penicillin and medical research, death was an everyday occurrence. It was intimate.

It goes in streaks. But some things never go out of fashion.' Hunger artists, fat folks, giants, and dog acts come and go but real freaks never lose their appeal.

Oh, of course, I always feel unconfident.