Literature is by definition opinionated. It is bound to provoke the arguments in many quarters, not excluding the hometown or even the family of the author.

The only way to get anything out of a writer's brains is to leave him or her alone until he or she is damn well ready to write it down.

It is a sobering thought that Gomer Pyle and the Beverly Hillbillies may be among our chief interstellar emissaries.

What should young people do with their lives today? Many things, obviously. But the most daring thing is to create stable communities in which the terrible disease of loneliness can be cured.

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

If this isn't nice, I don't know what is.

Unusual travel suggestions are dancing lessons from God.