Beer, of course, is actually a depressant, but poor people will never stop hoping otherwise.

The library is full of stories of supposed triumphs which makes me very suspicious of it. It's misleading for people to read about great successes, since even for middle-class and upper-class white people, in my experience, failure is the norm.

Be a sadist. No matter how sweet and innocent your leading characters, make awful things happen to them in order that the reader may see what they are made of.

His mother understood my illness immediately, that it was my world rather than myself that was diseased.

Only nut cases want to be president. This was true even in high school. Only clearly disturbed people ran for class president.

The name of the new religion, said Rumfoord, is The Church of God the Utterly Indifferent. . . The two chief teachings of this religion are these: Puny man can do nothing at all to help or please God Almighty, and Luck is not the hand of God.

Be fruitful, and multiply.