It matters, it always matters, to name rubbish as rubbish; that to do otherwise is to legitimize it.

If you actually want to change your world, there is a better way of doing it than blowing yourself up.

Sometimes great, banned works defy the censor's description and impose themselves on the world - 'Ulysses,' 'Lolita,' the 'Arabian Nights.'

When a reader falls in love with a book, it leaves its essence inside him, like radioactive fallout in an arable field, and after that there are certain crops that will no longer grow in him, while other, stranger, more fantastic growths may occasionally be produced.

If somebody's trying to shut you up, sing louder, and if possible, better.

Free societies are societies in motion, and with motion comes friction.

That's the trouble with you sad-city types: a place has to be miserable and dull as ditchwater before you believe it's real.