What good is a book that does not even transport us beyond all books?
There's a boy across the river with an ass like a peach; alas I was no swimmer and lost my Clementine.
I miss you so much your absence causes me, at times, accute pain. I don't mean sexually. I mean in connection with my writing.
The best way to keep something bad from happening is to see it ahead of time. . . and you can't see it if you refuse to face the possibility.
It is to be remembered that all art is magical in origin - music, sculpture, writing, painting - and by magical I mean intended to produce very definite results. Paintings were originally formulae to make what is painted happen. Art is not an end in itself, any more than Einstein's matter-into-energy formulae is an end in itself. Like all formulae, art was originally FUNCTIONAL, intended to make things happen, the way an atom bomb happens from Einstein's formulae.
There are no innocent bystanders.
Now Christianity sounded good at first to the naive convert. Love, peace and charity - what's wrong with that? I'll tell you what's wrong - a series of unprecedented horrors perpetrated by so-called Christians: The Inquisition, the Conquistadores, the American Indian wars, slavery, Hiroshima and the present-day Bible Belt.
Don't make me have to choose between what I want and what you think I need. 'Cause I'll always be your little girl, but even little girls have got to dream.
He stood and went to read my pin as I approached. “America, is it?” he said, a smile playing on his lips. “Yes, it is. And I know I’ve heard your name before, but could you remind me?
There's a rumor that President George Bush had a nose job, that he had some kind of plastic surgery, that he actually had a nose job. If this is true, that's the first new job he's created since taking office.
We have only now, only this single eternal moment opening and unfolding before us, day and night.