“For John DillingerIn hope he is still aliveThanksgiving Day, November 28, 1986In hope he is still aliveThanks for the wild turkey and the Passenger Pigeons, destined to be shit out through wholesome American guts; thanks for a Continent to despoil and poison; thanks for Indians to provide a modicum of challenge and danger; thanks for vast herds of bison to kill and skin, leaving the carcass to rot; thanks for bounties on wolves and coyotes; thanks for the American Dream to vulgarize and falsify until the bare lies shine through; thanks for the KKK; for nigger-killing lawmen feeling their notches; for decent church-going women with their mean, pinched, bitter, evil faces; thanks for Kill a Queer for Christ stickers; thanks for laboratory AIDS; thanks for Prohibition and the War Against Drugs; thanks for a country where nobody is allowed to mind his own business; thanks for a nation of finks—yes, thanks for all the memories all right, lets see your arms; you always were a headache and you always were a bore; thanks for the last and greatest betrayal of the last and greatest of human dreams.”

“Love, the deadliest of all things: It kills you both when you have it and when you don't. But that isn't it, exactly. The condemner and the condemned. The executioner; the blade; the last-minute reprieve; the gasping breath and the rolling sky above you and the thank you, thank you, thank you God. Love: It will kill you and save you, both.”

“Thank you for a lullaby last night. Thank you for the boy who sang it.”

“Thank you," he says."Thank who?""I don't know. You?""No, not me. Jesus.""Thank you, Jesus?""Yes, Toph, Jesus died for your Christmas fun.”

“When a liberal is abused, he says, ‘Thank God they didn’t beat me.’ When he is beaten, he thanks God they didn’t kill him. When he is killed, he will thank God that his immortal soul has been delivered from its mortal clay.”

“The words "Think and Thank" are inscribed in many of the Cromwellian churches ofEngland. These words ought to be inscribed in our hearts, too: "Think and Thank". Thinkof all we have to be grateful for, and thank God for all our boons and bounties.”