I admire people who know they can't sing. There are so many people out there who can't sing, but they think they can, so they sing a lot.
The best and purest human beings, from the beginning of time, have understood that life is sacred.
A great deal of intelligence can be invested in ignorance when the need for illusion is deep.
In Los Angeles all the loose objects in the country were collected, as if America had been tilted and everything that wasn't tightly screwed down had slid into Southern California.
You can spend the entire second half of your life recovering from the mistakes of the first half.
In every community there is a class of people profoundly dangerous to the rest. I don't mean the criminals. For them we have punitive sanctions. I mean the leaders. Invariably the most dangerous people seek the power. While in the parlors of indignation the right-thinking citizen brings his heart to a boil. (p. 51)
Everybody needs his memories. They keep the wolf of insignificance from the door.
I just don't think I've ever been comfortable at public functions and selling myself as an entity.
Pride dwells in the thought; the tongue can have but a very little share in it.
My beloved church misunderstood me. It preached the corruptibility of humanity when I came to demonstrate its potential for incorruptibility. It propounded the sinfulness of humanity when I suffered to reveal your godliness and to overcome your guilt by demonstrating that you can totally rise above the death of the body.
I was once told by a very well-respected editor, "Category horror is about good vs. evil, that's all it is. " And I thought, "That's why it's no good. That's why I find that stuff unreadable. " One is looking for something that's a little more emotionally complex and nuanced.