I remember when you could always rely on those little street kids to pop a few people for the latest Nikes, Vice-President John said. Now people get mugged for Reeboks, for Adidas - for generics, for Christ's sake.

When it's done with being graceful and poetic, language is meant to communicate, after all.

I read once that you need two things to be happy: any two of health, money, and love. You can cover the absense of one with the other two... But now I realized this was unmitigated bullshit, because health and money did not compare with love at all.

When someone thinks, I liked his last book, I'll hope this new one is good and shells out their hard-earned, I fervently want that person to be thrilled.

Elizabeth is smart, ruthless, and emotionally damaged ... [i]f Elizabeth's brain was a person, it would have scars, tattoos, and be missing one eye.

I will not be what I was made, but what I make.

By this action, the Government has proved that so long as it exists, none of us are truly free. Government and freedom are mutually exclusive. So if we value freedom, there's only one conclusion. It's time to get rid of this leftover relic we call Government.

Look, I understand that for a lot of people, the US is superior to their country of residence in myriad ways, but I'm Australian. We have it all: the weather, the beautiful cities, the brand of football that involves neither padding yourself up like Santa Claus nor standing in a line in front of goal and covering your testicles.

What it comes down to, you see, is that a naked body is just a naked body. But the possibility of a naked body is something special.

every story written is marks upon a page The same marks, repeated, only differently arranged

Some people would break the rules to get things done and some wouldn't it was simple as that. John didn't have much use for the latter.

Hey, I saw this old British movie, all the people spoke so different, you could hardly understand them. But everyone here speaks American as good as you and me. What's with that?

Monday morning and there's one less donut than there should be. Keen observers note the reduced mass straightaway but stay silent, because saying, 'Hey, is that only six donuts?' would betray their donut experience. It's not great for your career to be known as the person who can spot the difference between six and seven donuts at a glance.

Corporations! It's like there are these gigantic monsters living among us, and we don't mind that they're monsters because when we look at them they smile and hand us cheeseburgers. That's nuts.

People resist a census, but give them a profile page and they'll spend all day telling you who they are.

Someone from the Internet Writing Workshop sent me a link to the Gender Genie, where you paste in a section of text and it uses an algorithm to detect whether the author is male or female. Or, if you're an author, you can tell whether you're really nailing your opposite-sex characters. I mean, nailing their dialog.