If I'd written all the truth I knew for the past ten years, about 600 people - including me - would be rotting in prison cells from Rio to Seattle today. Absolute truth is a very rare and dangerous commodity in the context of professional journalism.
For every moment of triumph, for every instance of beauty, many souls must be trampled.
The trouble with Nixon is that he's a serious politics junkie. He's totally hooked and like any other junkie, he's a bummer to have around, especially as President.
Of all the men that have run for president in the twentieth century, only George McGovern truly understood what a monument America could be to the human race.
No man is so foolish but he may sometimes give another good counsel, and no man so wise that he may not easily err if he takes no other counsel than his own. He that is taught only by himself has a fool for a master.
Duke is an ugly word in Kentucky. Nothing in the world compares to the joy of beating those hateful swine from Duke.
I wasn't trying to be an outlaw writer. I never heard of that term; somebody else made it up. But we were all outside the law: Kerouac, Miller, Burroughs, Ginsberg, Kesey; I didn't have a gauge as to who was the worst outlaw. I just recognized allies: my people.
Freedom is something that dies unless it's used.
Rush Limbaugh is a lame professional swine, and he makes a good living at it. He is like a hired geek in some traveling backwoods carnival - the freaks who bite the heads off chickens - but Limbaugh is a modernized geek who thinks he can bite the heads off of people.
Remember this, folks - I am a Hillbilly, and I don't always Bet the same way I talk. Good advice is one thing, but smart gambling is quite another.
Not everybody is comfortable with the idea that politics is a guilty addiction. But it is.
Paranoia is just another word for ignorance.
There is no such thing as paranoia. Your worst fears can come true at any moment.
Fiction is based on reality unless you're a fairytale artist.
I guess that's one of the things about growing up in the fifties - it never occurred to me that you wouldn't be at least as successful as your parents.
Yesterday's weirdness is tomorrow's reason why.
I have always loved blizzards, if only because of the driving experience - which is definitely an acquired taste.
The only difference between the sane and the insane is that the sane have the power to lock up the insane.
Richard Nixon was a criminally insane Monster - Bill Clinton is a black-hearted Swine of a friend.
I am a generous man, by nature, and far more trusting than I should be. Indeed. The real world is risky territory for people with generosity of spirit. Beware.
Quacks are a part of our culture, and we all fall prey to them. Who among us can say, for sure, that even our own personal physicians are honest and competent?
Yes sir, I am a tortured man for all seasons, as they say, and I have powerful friends in high places. Birds sing where I walk, and children smile when they see me coming.
There might be some serious fun in politics.
Football fans share a universal language that cuts across many cultures and many personality types. A serious football fan is never alone. We are legion, and football is often the only thing we have in common.
'Crazy' is a term of art; 'Insane' is a term of law. Remember that, and you will save yourself a lot of trouble.