My ancestors were Freethinkers - and that's what I am, except we're called secular humanists now.

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.

Plato says that the unexamined life is not worth living. But what if the examined life turns out to be a clunker as well?

Give the reader at least one character he or she can root for.

I couldn't help wondering if that was what God put me on Earth for--to find out how much a man could take without breaking.

All the new technology seems redundant to me. I was quite happy with the United States mail service. And, I don't even have an answering machine, for God's sake.

The waitress brought me another drink. She wanted to light my hurricane lamp again. I wouldn't let her. "Can you see anything in the dark, with your sunglasses on?" she asked me. "The big show is inside my head," I said.