“The only difference between Hitler and Bush is that Hitler was elected.”

Charm was a scheme for making strangers like and trust a person immediately, no matter what the charmer had in mind.

So the America I loved still exists, if not in the White House or the Supreme Court or the Senate or the House of Representatives or the media. The America I love still exists at the front desks of our public libraries.

I want to stand as close to the edge as I can without going over. Out on the edge you see all kinds of things you can’t see from the center.

Do you realize that all great literature is all about what a bummer it is to be a human being? Isn’t it such a relief to have somebody say that?

We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be.

Like so many Americans, she was trying to construct a life that made sense from things she found in gift shops.

I have this disease late at night sometimes, involving alcohol and the telephone.

Beware of the man who works hard to learn something, learns it, and finds himself no wiser than before.

There are too many of us and we are all too far apart.

Who is more to be pitied, a writer bound and gagged by policemen or one living in perfect freedom who has nothing more to say?

Many people need desperately to receive this message: ‘I feel and think much as you do, care about many of the things you care about, although most people do not care about them. You are not alone.

I can have oodles of charm when I want to.

Beware of the man who works hard to learn something, learns it, and finds himself no wiser than before. He is full of murderous resentment of people who are ignorant without having come by their ignorance the hard way.

Of all the words of mice and men, the saddest are, It might have been.

One of the few good things about modern times: If you die horribly on television, you will not have died in vain. You will have entertained us.

I was a victim of a series of accidents, as are we all.

I’m addicted to placebos. I could quit, but it wouldn’t matter.

Don’t judge those who try and fail. Judge only those who fail to try.

You never win the silver, you only lose the gold.

Most players go where the puck is. I go where the puck will be.

After a point, it doesn’t matter where you come from. There are many star kids who haven’t done well in the industry and rank newcomers who have done amazingly well.

I’m always myself. Always. The only difference is that I come off as mean out of drag.

Don’t be serious, be sincere.

We are the same. There is no difference anywhere in the world. People are people. They laugh, cry, feel, and love, and music seems to be the commons denomination that brings us all together. Music cuts through all boundaries and goes right to the soul.