American Quotes

The whole drive of western culture, the part of it which is serious, is towards an extreme objectification. It's carried to the point where the human subject is treated almost as if it's dirt in the works of a watch.

Rock became an incredible commercial success, people just became bored with serious music, and it was forgotten.

In classical oil painting, there seemed to be a radical turn to seeing things as the camera sees them, with that technological modification. I began to have a tremendous problem with all of this.

I'm trying to assemble materials for a different mode of life.

I'm actually a great fan of lucidity.

I was a student at Harvard, and that's where I learned about so-called avant-garde music. Jackson Pollock, abstract expressionism and painting were well known at this time.

I have a picture of an ideal consciousness.

I began demonstrating against serious culture. In hindsight, the actual course of events has been very humiliating for me, because no one picked up on the intellectual critique I made.

I began composing works which were imitative of the music I was being told about. I was also very interested in translating the music into visual terms.

Basically, I viewed any work of art as an imposition of another person's taste, and saw the individual making this imposition as a kind of dictator.

At the same time, I was listening to black music, and I began to think that the best musicians were receiving the worst treatment. The people who were doing the greatest work were despised as lower class, with no dignity accorded to what they did.

Around 1967 I began backing away from dogmatic Leninism, not so much because I thought it was false, I just decided there was nothing utopian about it.

When I give a lot of speeches, they're always on the fly. I mean, I know what I'm going to say roughly, but I do not - will not read.

There's a lot more to publishing a book than writing it and slapping a cover on it.

One of the most talented writers out there is Brian Haig.

No matter how bad you think you have it, there's always - always somebody who's got it way, way worse.

My doctors warned me repeatedly that if you don't stay positive, you don't do well.

It's what every writer needs: a daybed.

I'm a bit of a Libertarian.

I'm a big believer in free enterprise. If people want to try it, then go for it.

I think the more avenues that open up when people want to publish, the better. Some of the authors that want to jump ship from the traditional houses and go on their own, you know what? Good luck. It's going to be a lot tougher than you think.

I just look at what's going on in the world.

I have such bad memories, sitting in the back of a classroom, being told, you know, everybody is going to read a paragraph, and skipping ahead to my paragraph and being mortified and trying to read it enough times so that I wouldn't stutter and stammer, getting called on, even in high school.

I have been blessed to have the same editor and work for a great publishing house.

Anybody who knew me growing up calls me Vinny.

And when I go around and talk to schools, what I tell the kids are, first of all, you have to accept each other's differences. Some of you are going to be a crappy football player, some of you are going to be a great mathematician. Whatever it is, accept each other's differences and help prop each o

A major theme in all my books is that the CIA is not only the first line of defense but they should also be the first line of offense.

A good football team plays offense and defense. You have to be aggressive and disrupt.

It's this upside-down world that we live in where we afford political correctness to the most intolerant group of individuals on the planet.

This most dangerous enemy is the American counterpart of the British Fabian Socialist, who denies that he is a Socialist and operates behind a mask which he calls National Planning.