The muses are ghosts, and sometimes they come uninvited.

The rope by which the great blocks of taxes are attached to any citizenry is simple loyalty.

If you were a real fascistic society and you had a vocal minority that was shouting, "Stop this, stop that, stop the other thing," what you would say is, "Let's give them all the drugs they want." In a lot of states, something very much like that happened. They lowered the drinking age to eighteen and said, "Get juiced."

I think that we're all mentally ill. Those of us outside the asylums only hide it a little better - and maybe not all that much better after all.

You've got to do something to fill up your day. And I can only play so much guitar and watch so many TV shows. It fulfills me. There are two things about it I like: It makes me happy, and it makes other people happy.

Words create sentences; sentences create paragraphs; sometimes paragraphs quicken and begin to breathe.

The water was glassy and calm, still candy-colored in the afterglow of sunset.