Virtually every writer I know would rather be a musician.

I now believe that the only way in which Americans can rise above their ordinariness, can mature sufficiently to rescue themselves and to help rescue their planet, is through enthusiastic intimacy with works of their own imagination.

Son--they say there isn't any royalty in this country, but do you want me to tell you how to be king of the United States of America? Just fall through the hole in a privy and come out smelling like a rose.

One thing I found out was that we need extended families. We need gangs. And, of course, if they're tribes and clans and so forth have been dispersed by the industrial revolution by people looking for work wherever they can find it. And a nuclear family, a man, a woman and kids and a dog and cat is no survival scheme at all. Horribly vulnerable.

If you really want to hurt your parents and you don't have nerve enough to be homosexual, the least you can do is go into the arts.

I've got news for Mr. Santayana: we're doomed to repeat the past no matter what. That's what it is to be alive.

Round and round we spin, with feet of lead and wings of tin.