“Tis better to have love and lustThan to let our apparatus rust.”

“Our government's got a war on drugs. That's certainly better then no drugs at all.”

“Eliot did to the word love what the Russians did to the word democracy. If Eliot is going to love everybody, no matter what they are, no matter what they do, then those of us who love particular people for particular reasons had better find ourselves a new word." He looked at an oil painting of his deceased wife. "For instance- I loved her more than I love our garbage collector, which makes me guilty of the most unspeakable of modern crimes: Dis-crim-i-nay-tion.”

“Let there be nothing harmonious about our children's playthings, lest they grow up expecting peace and order, and be eaten alive.”

“The function of the artist is to make people like life better than they have before.”

“He would make a good lamp post if he'd weather better and didn't have to eat.”

“‎The America I love still exists at the front desks of our public libraries.”