When I used to teach creative writing, I would tell the students to make their characters want something right away.

If people think nature is their friend, then they sure don't need an enemy.

Shortridge High School was an elitist high school. In a way it was a scandal because you could go there no matter where you lived, if you could get there. It was for over-achievers. It was for people who were going to college. So we were very special and we were hated for being ritzy.

How subservient to Jesus, or to a humane God Almighty, were the leaders of this country back in the 1840's, when Marx said such a supposedly evil thing about religion? They had made it perfectly legal to own human slaves, and weren't going to led women vote or hold public office, God forbid, for another eighty year.

But he is tired. He puts the pistol to his head again. He says, “I never asked to be born in the first place.

Talent is extremely common. What is rare is the willingness to endure the life of the writer.

in nonsense is strength