George Bush and his gang imagine they are being political geniuses.

Only in books do we learn what’s really going on.

Nowadays, of course, just about our only solvent industry is the merchandising of death, bankrolled by our grandchildren, so that the message of our principal art forms, movies and television and political speeches and newspaper columns, for the sake of the economy, simply has to be this: War is hell, all right, but the only way a boy can become a man is in a shoot-out of some kind, preferably, but by no means necessarily, on a battlefield.

You want to know something? We are still in the Dark Ages. The Dark Ages--they haven't ended yet.

Don't you think that's the main reason people find [writing] so difficult? If they can write complete sentences and can use a dictionary, isn't that the only reason they find writing hard: they don't know or care about anything?

I don't reveal to her that I love her. I keep poker faced. She might as well be looking at a cantaloupe, there is so little information in my face, but my heart is beating.

We were into the Speedway. We'd take a train out to the Speedway where farmers had flatbed trucks with bleachers on them. They'd park in the infield and we'd sit on those. Our heroes weren't the drivers, they were the pit crews. That's because we were local, and we knew what was going on.