I had to take responsibility, even if it meant saying no to an authority figure, because I was the authority on me.
When I start a story, I don't know where it's going.
Monsters are real, and ghosts are real too. They live inside us, and sometimes, they win.
What Darwin was too polite to say, my friends, is that we came to rule the earth not because we were the smartest, or even the meanest, but because we have always been the craziest, most murderous motherfuckers in the jungle.
Come to a book as you would come to an unexplored land. Come without a map. Explore it, and draw your own map. . . . A book is like a pump. It gives nothing unless first you give to it.
The trust of the innocent is the liar's most useful tool.
The place where you made your stand never mattered. Only that you were there. . . and still on your feet.
I wrote a letter to Harvard, explaining that I was having difficulty deciding between it and the University of Pennsylvania. Could I come and visit? Years later, the dean of students at Harvard told me that my letter had been posted in the dean’s office for the amusement of the staff. Thus did I learn the measure of institutional arrogance.
Of course, the recorder will never have the repertoire of the piano or the violin.
All histories do show, and wise politicians do hold it necessary that, for the well-governing of every Commonweal, it behoveth man to presuppose that all men are evil, and will declare themselves so to be when occasion is offered.
It is not easy to be solitary unless you are also born ruthless. Every solitary repudiates someone.