I read Mailer's Ancient Evenings with great interest because I was interested in . . . the seven souls structure, which was very helpful to me in Western Lands. And also in Place of Dead Roads. So that's Mailer.

Life is a vacation from two eternities, who wants to waste those precious years worrying about what happens when you get back to forever?

Any belief in Creators or Purpose is wishful thinking. And when you point out that perhaps ALL thinking is wishful, reactions of intense irritation give evidence that we are not dealing with logic but with faith.

The dream is a spontaneous happening and therefore dangerous to a control system set-up by the non-dreamers

[Arab peoples] are stuck back thousands of years and they think they're going to get out with a TV set.

My greatest strength is to have a great capacity to confront myself no matter how unpleasant. My greatest weakness is that I don't. I know that's enigmatic, but that's sort of a general formula for anyone, actually.

Bizarre and engrossingly disturbing, Naked Lunch, finds truth in madness.