Our culture runs on coffee and gasoline, the first often tasting like the second.

There is no force more potent in the modern world than stupidity fueled by greed.

There are some places so beautiful they can make a grown man break down and weep.

Critics are like ticks on a dog or tits on a motor: ornamental but dysfunctional.

The artist in our time has two chief responsibilities: (1) art; and (2) sedition.

Roosters: The cry of the male chicken is the most barbaric yawp in all of nature.

What is reason? Knowledge informed by sympathy, intelligence in the arms of love.

Tee Vee football: one team wins, one team loses -- they tie -- who cares? And why?

Is there a God? Who knows? Is there an angry unicorn on the dark side of the moon?

Civilization, like an airplane in flight, survives only as it keeps going forward.

Where all pretend to be thinking alike, it's likely that no one is thinking at all.

The sexual revolution transformed the American West: Now even cowboys can get laid.

Little boys love machines; girls adore horses; grown-up men and women like to walk.

The longest journey begins with a single step, not with a turn of the ignition key.

If the world is irrational, we can never know it -- either it or its irrationality.

What did Jesus say to the headwaiter at the Last Supper? 'Separate checks, please.'

Each thing in its way, when true to its own character, is equally beautiful. (p 41)

The developers and entrepreneurs must somehow be taught a new vocabulary of values.

A man is not aware of his virtues (if any). Nevertheless, one hopes that they exist.

Belief in God? An afterlife? I believe in rock: this apodictic rock beneath my feet.

Lightning streaks like gunfire through the clouds, volleys of thunder shake the air.

Mental degeneracy may be caused by lead poisoning. Or by a poor dip in the gene pool.

Capitalism: Nothing so mean could be right. Greed is the ugliest of the capital sins.

I believe in nothing that I cannot touch, kiss, embrace.... The rest is only hearsay.

What's the difference between the Lone Ranger and God? There really is a Lone Ranger.

We spend more time working for our labor-saving machines than they do working for us.

Desire, said the Buddha, is the cause of suffering. But without desire, what delight?

Everyone should learn a manual trade: It's never too late to become an honest person.

My own best books have not been published. In fact, they've not even been written yet.

As Mark Twain said, 'I love Wagner -- if only they'd cut out all that damned singing!'

Spartacus, like Jesus, was also crucified by the Romans. And for equally good reasons.

Those who dream of the joys of living in a space colony should live in a space colony.

Nothing could be older than the daily news, nothing deader than yesterday's newspaper.

A cowboy is a hired hand on the middle of a horse contemplating the hind end of a cow.

An economic system which can only expand or expire must be false to all that is human.

My books always make the best-seller lists in Wolf Hole, Arizona, and Hanksville, Utah.

A good writer must have more than vin rosé in his veins, use more than Chablis for ink.

In everything but brains and brawn, women are vastly superior to men. A different race.

I would prefer to write about everything; what else is there? But one must be selective.

The writer concerned more with technique than truth becomes a technician, not an artist.

Most academic economists know nothing of economy. In fact, they know little of anything.

It is always dishonest for a reviewer to review the author instead of the author's book.

Those art lovers who pride themselves mostly on *taste* usually possess no other talent.

A rancher is a farmer who farms the public lands with a herd of four-legged lawn mowers.

For women, the sexual act is a means to a higher end. For a man, it is an end in itself.

There are two kinds of people I cannot abide: bigots and any well-organized ethnic group.

It is not enough to understand the natural world; the point is to defend and preserve it.

A mother's sorrow is more true, honorable, and beautiful than the detachment of the sage.

Life is hard? True - but let's love it anyhow, though it breaks every bone in our bodies.

Anton Bruckner wrote the same symphony nine times, trying to get it just right. He failed.

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