Beware of "grandfalloons" and "foma". A "grandfalloon" is a proud and meaningless association of human beings. "Foma" are harmless truths intended to comfort simple souls.

Armistice Day has become Veterans' Day. Armistice Day was sacred. Veterans' Day is not. So I will throw Veterans' Day over my shoulder. Armistice Day I will keep. I don't want to throw away any sacred things. What else is sacred? Oh, Romeo and Juliet, for instance. And all music is.

Literature should not disappear up its own asshole, so to speak.

That's one thing Earthlings might learn to do, if they tried hard enough: Ignore the awful times and concentrate on the good ones.

Where you can see tribal behavior now is in this business about teaching evolution in a science class and intelligent design. It's the scientists themselves are behaving tribally.

Ideas on earth were badges of friendship or enimity. Their content did not matter. Friends agreed with friends, in order to express friendliness. Enemies disagreed with enemies, in order to express enimity.

I taught writing for a while and whenever somebody would tell me they were going to write about their dad, I would tell them they might as well go write about killing puppies because neither story was going to work. It just doesn't work.