A horse must be a bit mad to be a good cavalry mount, and its rider must be completely so.

The Gnostics believed that exile was the essential condition of man. Do you agree? I do. The artist and the addict both wrestle with this experience of exile. They share an acute, even excruciating sensitivity to the state of separation and isolation, and both actively seek a way to overcome it, to transcend it, or at least to make the pain go away. What is the pain of being human? It's the condition of being suspended between two worlds and being unable to fully enter into either.

When we turn pro we stop running from our fears. We turn around and face them.

Reading is alive and well and will get more alive and more well. Reading on tablets (or whatever the next tech device will be) is the future - and the future is now.

The great thing about writing about the ancient Spartans or Athenians is that so much knowledge is no longer extant that no one, except maybe a Cambridge or Oxford don, can call you out and prove you wrong.

As resistance works to keep us from becoming who we were born to be, equal and opposite powers are counterpoised against it. These are our allies and angels.

Start before you’re ready. Good things happen when we start before we’re ready.