“It doesn’t make a damned bit of difference who wins the war to someone who’s dead.”

The laws of nature are only as immutable as the minds which promote them. Ignorance of the law is 9/10ths of the law. Just because you aren’t paranoid doesn’t mean they aren’t out to get you.

When I look up, I see people cashing in. I don’t see heaven or saints or angels. I see people cashing in on every decent impulse and every human tragedy.

He was never without misery, and never without hope.

You’re an intelligent person of great moral character who has taken a very courageous stand. I’m an intelligent person with no moral character at all, so I’m in an ideal position to appreciate it.

All of my books deal in a very rough, rude fashion with subjects about which there are great conflicts of opinion.

They agreed that it was neither possible nor necessary to educate people who never questioned anything.

Some men are born mediocre, some men achieve mediocrity, and some men have mediocrity thrust upon them.

The question is: what is a sane man to do in an insane society?

Be glad you’re even alive. Be furious you’re going to die.

I’ve only had four ideas for a novel in my life, and I’ve written all of them.

I think in every country that there is at least one executive who is scared of going crazy.

The country was in peril; he was jeopardizing his traditional rights of freedom and independence by daring to exercise them.

There was no telling what people might find out once they felt free to ask whatever questions they wanted to.

Destiny is a good thing to accept when it’s going your way. When it isn’t, don’t call it destiny; call it injustice, treachery, or simple bad luck.

The villains will come along. There were plenty in the Carter administration, and there will be plenty with Reagan.

Every writer I know has trouble writing.

A man who is 100% sane is dead.

To travel is to be alive, but to get somewhere is to be dead, for as our own proverb says, To travel well is better than to arrive.

Call no man happy till he is dead.

People say satire is dead. It’s not dead; it’s alive and living in the White House.

He is many things – dangerous and devious, cunning and deadly, a good friend and an implacable enemy – but he comes from an age when a man’s word was indeed precious.

The best advice about getting older? Just be thankful you’re not dead!

Rather be dead then cool.

From the deepest desires often come the deadliest hate.