“Souls, Ms. Ellis, are for people who blame devils for their illness and praise angels for the cure. I do neither.”

“Resistance is its own reward.”

“There is no moral to my song,I praise no right, I blame no wrong;I tell of things that I have seen,I show the man that I have beenAs simply as a poet canWho knows himself poet and man.”

“...the people at the top know what they have to do to stay there, and in a pinch they can easily overlook the sweaty piety of the new Republican masses, the social conservatives who raise their voices in praise of Jesus but cast their votes for Caesar.”

“Bailing out people who made ill-advised mortgages makes no more sense that bailing out people who lost their life savings in Las Vegas casinos.”

“He has great tranquillity of heart who cares neither for the praises nor the fault-finding of men. He will easily be content and pacified, whose conscience is pure. You are not holier if you are praised, nor the more worthless if you are found fault with. What you are, that you are; neither by word can you be made greater than what you are in the sight of God.”

“Let them call me a rebel and welcome. I feel no concern from it. But should I suffer the misery of devils, were I to make a whore of my soul.”