Where do I get my ideas from? You might as well have asked that of Beethoven. He was goofing around in Germany like everybody else, and all of a sudden this stuff came gushing out of him. It was music. I was goofing around like everybody else in Indiana, and all of a sudden stuff came gushing out. It was disgust with civilization.

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The world is full of people who are very clever at seeming much smarter than they really are.

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America is the wealthiest nation on Earth, but its people are mainly poor, and poor Americans are urged to hate themselves... It is in fact a crime for an American to be poor, even though America is a nation of poor. Every other nation has folk traditions of men who were poor but extremely wise and virtuous, and therefore more estimable than anyone with power and gold. No such tales are told by American poor. They mock themselves and glorify their betters.

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There is a tragic flaw in our precious constitution, and I don't know what can be done to fix it. This is it: Only nut cases want to be president.

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Big, undreamed-of things — the people on the edge see them first.

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A sane person to an insane society must appear insane.

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

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It's a terrible waste to be happy and not notice it.

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You meet saints everywhere. They can be anywhere. They are people behaving decently in an indecent society.

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And a step backward, after making a wrong turn, is a step in the right direction.

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