Bland writing - timid, antiseptic, vanilla writing - is nearly as unhealthy as the brutal and dark. Instead of sipping, say, elixir, nectar, tequila, or champagne, the reader is invited to slurp lumpy milk or choke on the author's dust bunnies.

Just because something didn't happen doesn't mean it isn't true.

A mediocre failure is as insufferable as a mediocre success. Embrace failure! Seek it out. Learn to love it. That may be the only way any of us will ever be free.

Those who possess wisdom cannot just ladle it out to every wantwit and jackanapes who comes along and asks for it. A person must be prepared to receive wisdom, or else it will do him more harm than good. Moreover, a lout thrashing about in the clear waters of wisdom will dirty those waters for everyone else.

The price of self-destiny is never cheap, and in certain situations it is unthinkable. But to achieve the marvelous, it is precisely the unthinkable that must be thought.

Should you fail to pilot your own ship, don't be surprised at what inappropriate port you find yourself docked.

At birth, we emerge from dream soup. At death, we sink back into dream soup. In between soups, there is a crossing of dry land. Life is a portage.