Atheists From The United States

"The Internet is the modern form of knitting. In the old days women who had nothing to do would knit, but at least you got something out of it — a pair of socks, maybe a scarf, occasionally a little bedspread. That’s mostly what the Internet is, just passing the time. But unfortunately you are dealing with words that can have meaning."

"A sect, incidentally, is a religion with no political power."

"Among other things Jonestown was an example of a definition well known to sociologists of religion: a cult is a religion with no political power."

"He sounded like Jean-François Revel, a French socialist writer who talks about one of the great unexplained phenomena of modern astronomy: namely, that the dark night of fascism is always descending in the United States and yet lands only in Europe."

"Hoyt began moving his lips as if he were trying to suck the ice cream off the top of a cone without using his teeth. She tried to make her lips move in sync with his. The next thing she knew, Hoyt had put his hand sort of under her thigh and hoisted her leg up over his thigh. What was she to do? Was this the point she should say, “Stop!”? No, she shouldn’t put it that way. It would be much cooler to say, “No, Hoyt,” in an even voice, the way you would talk to a dog that insists on begging at the table."

"Interviewer: So you weren't surprised by the Dan Rather debacle?"

"Suddenly he is like a ping-pong ball in a flood of sensory stimuli, heart beating, blood coursing, breath suspiring, teeth grating, hand moving over the percale sheet over those thousands of minute warfy woofings like a brush fire, sun glow and the highlight on a stainless-steel rod, quite a little movie you have going on in that highlight there, Hondo, Technicolors, pick each one out like fishing for neon gumballs with a steam shovel in the Funtime Arcade, a ping-pong ball in a flood of sensory stimuli, all quite ordinary, but... revealing themselves for the first time and happening... Now... as if for the first time he has entered a moment in his life and known exactly what is happening to his senses now, at this moment, and with each new discovery it is as if he has entered into all of it himself, is one with it, the movie white desert of the ceiling becomes something rich, personal, his, beautiful beyond description, like an orgasm behind the eyeballs, and his A-rabs — A-rabs behind the eyelids, eyelid movies, room for them and a lot more in the five billion thoughts per second stroboscope synapses — his A-rab heroes, fine Daily Double horsehair mustaches wrapped about the Orbicularis Oris of their mouths — Face! The doctor comes back in and, marvelous, poor tight cone ass, doc, Kesey can now see into him."

"Interviewer: You didn't read The Right Stuff."

"At certain points, reading [A Man in Full] can even be said to resemble the act of making love to a three-hundred pound woman. Once she gets on top, it's over. Fall in love, or be asphyxiated. So you read and you grab and you even find delight in some of these mounds of material. Yet all the while you resist — how you resist! — letting three hundred pounds take you over."

"Everything was becoming allegorical, understood by the group mind, and especially this: "You're either on the bus … or off the bus.""

"Images of cars and highways fill our literature, songs, movies and art, not just in America but worldwide. Books like "On the Road" by Jack Kerouac or "The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test" by Tom Wolfe were among the first to romanticize driving and road trips. Old blues and early rock songs like "Route 66," "Brand New Cadillac," and "Goin' Mobile" further romanticized cars and highways for the postwar "Baby Boom" generation. Thousands of films and T.V. shows have focused on or predominantly featured cars and car chases: "Rebel Without a Cause," "American Graffiti," "Easy Rider," "Bullet," "The Dukes of Hazzard," the "James Bond" films, and at least half a dozen Burt Reynolds movies. The list goes on... All this pop culture, combined with relentless commercial advertising, has made cars an integral part of our personal identity. We have been taught to equate motor vehicles with wealth, power, romance, rebellion and freedom. Now, everywhere I go in the world, I see cars-millions and millions of cars-in Rome, Guatemala City, Kuala Lumpur, Bombay and Beijing. Everywhere there are huge traffic jams and poor air quality. The number of motor vehicles in the world is growing three times faster than the population."

"One of the shrewdest observers of our times, Tom Wolfe, used to be fond of employing the French term nostalgie de la boue, coined in 1855 by the French dramatist Émile Augier. It translates as “nostalgia for the mud.” Or what Merriam-Webster now defines as “attraction to what is crude, depraved, or degrading.”"

"At this weak, pale, tabescent moment in the history of American literature, we need a battalion, a brigade, of Zolas to head out into this wild, bizarre, unpredictable, Hog-stomping, Baroque country of ours and reclaim it as literary property."

"...Las Vegas is the only town in the world whose skyline is made up neither of buildings, like New York, nor of trees, like Wilbraham, Massachusetts, but signs."

"The demolition derby is, pure and simple, a form of gladiatorial combat for our times."

"He talks in a soft voice with a country accent, almost a pure country accent, only crackling and rasping and cheese-grated over the two-foot hookup, talking about — "—there's been no creativity," he is saying, "and I think my value has been to help create the next step. I don't think there will be any movement off the drug scene until there is something else to move to —" — all in a plain country accent about something — well, to be frank, I didn't know what in the hell it was all about. Sometimes he spoke cryptically, in aphorisms. I told him I had heard he didn't intend to do any more writing. Why? I said. "I'd rather be a lightning rod than a seismograph," he said. He talked about something called the Acid Test and forms of expression in which there would be no separation between himself and the audience. It would be all one experience, with all the senses opened wide, words, music, lights, sounds, touch — lightning."

"The first thing we’re looking at here is an expression really of Yip’s philosophy and background, which he brings to writing lyrics for the songs. And what it says here is that songs have always been man’s anodyne against tyranny and terror. The artist is on the side of Humanity."

"My heart is like the willow That bends, but never breaks. It sighs when summer jilts her, It sings when April wakes. So you, who come a-smiling With summer in your eyes, Think not that your beguiling Will take me by surprise. My heart's prepared for aching The moment you take wing. But not, my friend, for breaking While there's another spring."

"I am one of the last of a small tribe of troubadours, who still believe that life is a beautiful and exciting journey with a purpose and grace which are well worth singing about."

"No matter how much I probe and prod, I cannot quite believe in God; But oh, I hope to God that He Unswervingly believes in me."

"And only God who makes the tree Also makes the fools like me. But only fools like me, you see, Can make a God, who makes a tree."

"No matter how high or great the throne, What sits on it is the same as your own."

"WHERE and WHEN Are lost in space. THERE and THEN Do not embrace. So before we disappear Come sweet NOW and kiss the HERE."

"As the writer of the lyric of the song ‘God’s Country’, I am outraged by the suggestion that somehow I am connected with, believe in, or am sympathetic with Communist or totalitarian philosophy."

"Lives of great men all remind us greatness takes no easy way. All the heroes of tomorrow are the heretics of today. Socrates and Galileo, John Brown, Thoreau, Christ, and Debs Heard the night cry down with traitors, and the dawn shout "Up the reds!""

"When I'm not near the girl I love, I love the girl I'm near."

"I am a rebel by birth. … I contest anything that is unjust, that causes suffering in humanity. My feelings about that are so strong, I don't think I could live with myself if I weren't honest."

"When the idle poor Become the idle rich You'll never know just who is who or who is which."

"Life is short, short, brother! Ain't it the truth? And there is no other Ain't it the truth? You gotta rock that rainbow while you still got your youth! Oh! Ain't it the solid truth?"

"On the day I was born, Said my father, said he I've an elegant legacy waiting for ye. Tis a rhyme for your lips And a song for your heart To sing it whenever the world falls apart. Look, look, look to the rainbow Follow it over the hill and stream Look, look, look to the rainbow Follow the fellow who follows a dream."

"To let a fool kiss you is stupid, To let a kiss fool you is worse."

"How are things in Glocca Morra? Is that little brook still leaping there? Does it still run down to Donny cove? Through Killybegs, Kilkerry and Kildare?"

"So I ask each weepin' willow And each brook along the way, And each lad that comes a-whistlin' Tooralay How are things in Glocca Morra This fine day?"

"You’re out of the woods You’re out of the dark You’re out of the night Step into the sun, step into the light, Keep straight ahead For the most glorious place On the Face of the Earth Or the sky. Hold onto your breath Hold onto your heart Hold onto your hope, March up to the gate And bid it open."

"The Lord made Adam, the Lord made Eve, he made ‘em both a little bit naive."

"Follow the yellow brick road."

"We're off to see the Wizard, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. You'll find he is a whiz of a Wiz! If ever a Wiz! there was."

"Say, its only a paper moon Sailing over a cardboard sea But it wouldn't be make-believe If you believed in me."

"Without your love It's a honky-tonk parade Without your love It's a melody played in a penny arcade. It's a Barnum and Bailey world Just as phony as it can be But it wouldn't be make-believe If you believed in me."

"I never knew the charm of spring Never met it face to face I never knew my heart could sing Never missed a warm embrace 'Til April in Paris. Whom can I run to? What have you done to My heart?"

"Somewhere over the rainbow, Way up high There's a land that I heard of Once in a lullaby. Somewhere over the rainbow Skies are blue And the dreams that you dare to dream Really do come true."

"Some day I'll wish upon a star And wake up where the clouds are far behind me Where troubles melt like lemondrops Away above the chimney tops, That's where you'll find me. Somewhere over the rainbow Bluebirds fly. Birds fly over the rainbow, Why then, oh why can't I?"

"Once I built a tower up to the sun Brick and rivet and lime Once I built a tower, now it's done Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?"

"Once I built a railroad, I made it run, made it race against time. Once I built a railroad; now it's done. Brother, can you spare a dime?"

"I don't want to be alone. I have never wanted to be alone. I fucking hate it. I hate that I have no one to talk to, I hate that I have no one to call, I hate that I have no one to hold my hand, hug me, tell me everything is going to be all right....I hate that I have no one to share my hopes and my dreams with, I hate that I have no longer have any hopes or dreams, I hate that I have no one to tell me to hold on, that I can find them again. I hate that when I scream, and I scream bloody murder, that I am screaming into emptiness. I hate that there is no one to hear my scream and that there is no one to help me learn how to stop screaming."

"Where the fuck did they make you, Kid? What's that mean? Where does someone like you come from? I've lived a lot of places. Like where? Why do you care? Just wondering. Stop wondering. Why? I don't want to make friends here. Why? I don't like good-byes. You gotta say them though. No, you don't."

"I don't believe she's in Heaven and I don't believe she's in a better place. She's dead and when we're dead, we're gone. There are no blinding lights, there is no happy music, there are no angels waiting to greet us. St. Peter is not at the Pearly Gates with a big fat fucking book, our friends and Relatives are not holding a seat for us at a divine dinner table, we do not get a tour of Heaven. We're dead and that is it. No more."

"I look at Hank and he nods and I nod and for a brief second I feel strong. Not strong enough to face myself, but strong enough to keep going."

"More than anything, all I have ever wanted is to be close to someone. More than anything, all I have ever wanted is to feel as if I wasn't alone."

"Life is hard, Kid, you gotta be harder. You gotta take it on and fight for it and be a fucking man about how you live it. If you're too much of a pussy to do that, then maybe you should leave, 'cause you're dead already."