I Was Brought Up To Believe That

Every Compulsion Is Put Upon Writers To Become Safe, Polite, Obedient, And Sterile. In Protest, I Declined Election To The National Institute Of Arts And Letters Some Years Ago, And Now I Must Decline The Pulitzer Prize.

Good Lord, I Don't Know What 'rights' A Man Has! And I Don't Know The Solution Of Boredom. If I Did, I'd Be The One Philosopher That Had The Cure For Living. But I Do Know That About Ten Times As Many People Find Their Lives Dull, And Unnecessarily Dull, As Ever Admit It; And I Do Believe That If We Busted Out And Admitted It Sometimes, Instead Of Being Nice And Patient And Loyal For Sixty Years, And Then Nice And Patient And Dead For The Rest Of Eternity, Why, Maybe, Possibly, We Might Make Life More Fun.

We'd Get Sick On Too Many Cookies, But Ever So Much Sicker On No Cookies At All.

Under A Tyranny, Most Friends Are A Liability. One Quarter Of Them Turn "reasonable" And Become Your Enemies, One Quarter Are Afraid To Speak, And One Quarter Are Killed And You Die With Them. But The Blessed Final Quarter Keep You Alive.

Fine, Large, Meaningless, General Terms Like Romance And Business Can Always Be Related. They Take The Place Of Thinking, And Are Highly Useful To Optimists And Lecturers.