The complicated futility of ignorance..

I say in speeches that a plausible mission of artists is to make people appreciate being alive at least a little bit. I am then asked if I know of an….

I know of very few people who are dreaming of a world for their grandchildren..

I apologize because of the terrible mess the planet is in. But it has always been a mess. There have never been any 'Good Old Days,' there have just ….

Is there nothing I have done which will outlive me, other than the opprobrium of my first wife and sons and grandchildren? Do I care? Doesn't everybo….

Nowadays, of course, just about our only solvent industry is the merchandising of death, bankrolled by our grandchildren..

1492. As children we were taught to memorize this year with pride and joy as the year people began living full and imaginative lives on the continent….

Find a subject you care about and which you in your heart feel others should care about. It is this genuine caring, and not your games with language,….

I just know that there are plenty of people who are in terrible trouble and can't get out. And so I'm impatient with those who think that it's easy f….

A saint is a person who behaves decently in a shockingly indecent society..

Human beings are about 1,000 times dumber and meaner than they think they are..

During the Vietnam War, which lasted longer than any war we've ever been in - and which we lost - every respectable artist in this country was agains….

The Fourteenth Book is entitled, "What can a Thoughtful Man Hope for Mankind on Earth, Given the Experience of the Past Million Years?" It doesn't ta….

Here is a lesson in creative writing. First rule: Do not use semicolons. They are transvestite hermaphrodites representing absolutely nothing. All th….

Every sentence must do one of two things-reveal character or advance the action..

bergeron's epitaph for the planet, i remember, which he said should be carved in big letters in a wall of the grand canyon for the flying-saucer peop….

There is love enough in this world for everybody, if people will just look..

I couldn't survive my own pessimism if I didn't have some kind of sunny little dream..

If your brains were dynamite there wouldn't be enough to blow your hat off..

We don't make bicycles anymore. It's all human relations now. The eggheads sit around trying to figure out new ways for everyone to be happy. Nobody ….

Perhaps I am the turtle, able to live simply anywhere, even underwater for short periods, with my home on my back..