Nowhere else in history has there ever been a flag that stands for the right to burn itself. This is the fractal of our flag. It stands for the right to destroy itself.

People think love is an emotion. Love is good sense.

But he won’t let the pain blot out the humor no more’n he’ll let the humor blot out the pain.

No, that nurse ain't some kinda monster chicken, buddy, what she is is a ball-cutter. I've seen a thousand of 'em, old and young, men and women. Seen 'em all over the country and in the homes- people who try to make you weak so they can get you to toe the line, to follow their rules, to live like they want you to. And the best way to do this, to get you to knuckle under, is to weaken you by gettin' you where it hurts the worst.

Luckily, I remembered something Malcolm Cowley had taught us at Stanford - perhaps the most important lesson a writing class (not a writer, understand, but a class) can ever learn. 'Be gentle with one another's efforts,' he often admonished us. 'Be kind and considerate with your criticism. Always remember that it's just as hard to write a bad book as it is to write a good book.'

That ain't me, that ain't my face. It wasn't even me when I was trying to be that face. I wasn't even really me them; I was just being the way I looked, the way people wanted.

What we hoped was that we could stop the coming end of the world.