Dad said I would always be “high minded and low waged” from reading too much Ralph Waldo Emerson. Maybe he was right. - Jim Harrison

In my own lifetime I’ve seen the apotheosis of greed as a virtue, and brutal insensitivity become enlightened self interest. We may do as well as all but a few countries but that scarcely makes us a Christian nation except to those who bathe in patriotic gore out of habit and stupidity. Neither the emperor and consorts nor the citizenry is wearing the sacramental clothing it chooses to think it is wearing. A simple, private reading of the Gospels would tell them so.

He had been foolish enough to believe that as he recovered over the past few months the world might be recovering with him

I like grit, I like love and death, I'm tired of irony. ... A lot of good fiction is sentimental. ... The novelist who refuses sentiment refuses the full spectrum of human behavior, and then he just dries up. ... I would rather give full vent to all human loves and disappointments, and take a chance on being corny, than die a smartass.