Virtue is simply happiness, and happiness is a by-product of function. You are happy when you are functioning.

You know a real friend? Someone you know will look after your cat after you are gone.

Dennis Cooper, God help him, is a born writer.

In my writing I am acting as a map maker, an explorer of psychic areas, a cosmonaut of inner space, and I see no point in exploring areas that have already been thoroughly surveyed.

The simplest questions are the most difficult.

[Political movements] both favor alcohol and are against pot.

I meant that people will take anything that gives them a lift, whether it's alcohol or cocaine or the consciousness-expanding drugs or opiates. In Iran, until recently, they sold opium in shops legally, and they had 3,000,000 addicts in a population of 15,000,000. I don't believe that all those people were escaping from "complexes" or anything of the sort. They were simply exposed to it.