Mark Twain
"The coldest winter I ever spent was a summer in San Francisco."

"The unexamined life is not worth living."
Socrates

. . . You will become way less concerned with what people think of you when you realize how seldom they do.

David Foster Wallace - Infinite Jest

I do not promise you ease. I do not promise you comfort. But I do promise you these hardships: weariness and suffering. And with them, I promise you victory.
- Giuseppe Garibaldi

"There is nothing more demoralizing than a small but adequate income."

Edmund Wilson

"Too low they build, who build beneath the stars."

Edward Young

"If you are an adolescent, here is the trick to being neither quite a nerd, nor quite a jock: be no one. It is easier than you think" Infinite Jest

"If you don't need a lawyer then no one needs a lawyer. And believe me, everyone needs a lawyer." Michael Chabon, The Yiddish Policeman's Union.

"If, after I depart this vale, you ever remember me and have thought to please my ghost, forgive some sinner, and wink your eye at some homely girl."

HL Menken's epitaph.

"Be bold and mighty forces will come to your aid." - Goethe

From Meet the Press - July 02, 2006

Dana Priest and Bill Bennet:

PRIEST: Well, it’s not a crime to publish classified information. And this is one of the things Mr. Bennett keeps telling people that it is. But, in fact, there are some narrow categories of information you can’t publish, certain signals, communications, intelligence, the names of covert operatives and nuclear secrets.

Now why isn’t it a crime? I mean, some people would like to make casino gambling a crime, but it is not a crime. Why isn’t it not a crime? Because the framers of the Constitution wanted to protect the press so that they could perform a basic role in government oversight, and you can’t do that. Look at the criticism that the press got after Iraq that we did not do our job on WMD. And that was all in a classified arena. To do a better job—and I believe that we should’ve done a better job—we would’ve again, found ourselves in the arena of...


As the camera pulls back, I am pretty sure that you can see Bennet mouth the word "Motherfucker."

Mike Wallace - What about the drugs?

Kinky Friedman - What about 'em? Look I think You have to figure out what you like in life and let it kill you.

If you tell the truth, have one foot in the stirrup - Kinky Friedman quoting an old Turkish proverb.

I wake and feel the fell of dark, not day.
And I have asked to be
Where no storm come.
Gerard Manly Hopkins

From Into the Woods by Bill Bryson : Hunters will tell you that a moose is a wily and ferocious forest creature. Nonsense. A moose is a cow drawn by a three-year old.

"The first thing I saw was a butterfly. And of course, I stomped it. Hard." Michael Swanwick, Cigar Box Faust and other Miniatures

No, your not a bad mother; you're just a barking lunatic. From the film About a Boy.

"Is life so dear or peace so sweet as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take, but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!" Patrick Henry

From the same Vonnegut interview:

You know, I taught writing for a while and whenever somebody would tell me they were going to write about their dad, I would tell them they might as well go write about killing puppies because neither story was going to work.

Q: So is this really the final book? Timequake was supposed to be your farewell, and then Dr. Kevorkian came along.

Vonnegut: I don't fucking know. I keep thinking I'll die. Why do you think I smoke so much?

Q: How many packs are you up to a day?

Vonnegut: Never mind. It's none of your fucking business. Fuck off — you know what I'm saying?