What makes people so impatient is what I can't figure; all the guy had to do was wait.

He knows that there's no better way in the world to aggravate somebody who's trying to make it hard for you than by acting like you're not bothered.

Listen, wait, and be patient. Every shaman knows you have to deal with the fire that's in your audience's eye.

People don't want other people to get high, because if you get high, you might see the falsity of the fabric of the society we live in.

He knows that you have to laugh at the things that hurt you just to keep yourself in balance, just to keep the world from running you plumb crazy.

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.'

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