When all lies, deceit, pretense is stripped away, what remains? The truth of a painting, or a book or a man.

The whole drug war is nothing but a pretext to increase police power and personnel, and that, of course, is dead wrong. So many created imagined drug offenses.

You must learn to exist with no religion, no country, no allies. You must learn to live alone in silence.

Build a good name. Keep your name clean. Don't make compromises. Don't worry about making a bunch of money or being successful. Be concerned with doing good work and make the right choices and protect your work. And if you can build a good name, eventually, that name will be its own currency.

Cheat your landlord if you can -- and must -- but do not try to shortchange the Muse.

And there are my cats, engaged in a ritual that goes back thousands of years, tranquilly licking themselves after the meal. Practical animals, they prefer to have others provide the food ... some of them do. There must have been a split between the cats who accepted domestication and those who did not.

The word is now a virus.