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- “If you want to tell people the truth, make them laugh, otherwise they'll kill you.” — Oscar Wilde
- “When you loved someone and had to let them go, there will always be that small part of yourself that whispers, ‘What was it that you wanted and why didn’t you fight for it?’” ― Shannon L. Alder
- “Time is the greatest currency. To save time, hire, to save money, learn. But, rarely can one save both. It costs to be the boss: either cash or time—and at times being El Jefe requires lots of both. ” — John R. Hall
- “It turned into a drinking contest. Right before I went to bed, I was winning.” — John Prine
- “When in doubt, deny everything, and order a triple-pour of well-aged whiskey.” — John R. Hall
- “In Rachel Kushner's New Yorker piece, “Coming of age on the streets of San Francisco,” which was taken from her book The Hard Crowd: Essays 2000-2020, she exposes a question that she believed struggling drug addicts ask themselves. It intrigued me for many reasons, but mainly because I think Kushner also knows that most people subconsciously ask themselves the same nagging question—unaware, to be sure; nevertheless, it is there. Shakespeare asked the same question, too, but using the words of his day: ‘to be or not to be . . .’ Rachel’s Shakespearian and, to a degree, Darwin-esque internal struggle centers on ‘The glamour of death, or the banality of survival: which is it going to be?’” — John R. Hall
- “Once one has been imprisoned by being shown the way, breaking free is tedious, at best.” — John R. Hall
- “It’s so cute when they have hope, and at the same time so tragic.” — John R. Hall
- “’I have been on a highway to hell my entire life, and I am now fine with that destination—especially if Donald J. Trump is granted access into heaven.” — John R. Hall
- “From Thespis through Shakespeare to Sondheim and beyond, live theater has a long and rich history of being a catalyst for individual and societal change. The power of the proscenium arch is undeniable and without rival. From the stage emanates invigorating commentary addressing social injustices and the indisputable strength of the human spirit to prevail, both can trigger interpersonal reflection by placing audiences in front of a metaphorical mirror. Beyond the fourth wall lies the suspension of disbelief. It is there, in that altered state of mind, when ill-conceived and long-held ideals may be addressed and challenged, and wherein a cathartic release can occur and change be brought about.” — John R. Hall
- “One of God's own prototypes. A high-powered mutant of some kind never even considered for mass production. Too weird to live, and too rare to die.” ― Hunter S. Thompson
- “Anyway, I trust all is well for you in these trying times; I never thought that America’s USPS (the post office) would be commandeered for political ends: aka the manipulation of an American election. We are truly living in the precursory days—the final free days—of a full-blown autocratic American society. The playbook Trump (and his Republican cohorts in the Senate and Congress) is following is straight out of Berlin (circa 1930s through 1945 ) when Goebbels and Hitler were given free reign by Germany’s politicians, businesses, and a large swath of its citizenry. Ticktock, goes America’s doomsday clock!” — John R. Hall
- “I’ve been pronounced dead. I’ve read my own obituaries; they were the best reviews I ever had.” — Elizabeth Taylor
- “Chicken Little (circa 2020): ‘Forget the sky! It’s the Donald that will end the world.’” — John R. Hall
- “The real problem with writing a book in this day and age and trying to get it noticed is that America is a soundbite society with an attention span which is measured in nanoseconds.” — John R. Hall
- “When I write, I am in my time and place. When you read what I wrote, you are in your time and place, which could be years later and far away. Yet we are connected, mind to mind.” — Victor Boc
- “My American pride was at an all-time high when I witnessed a cross-section of the United States population take to the streets demanding justice for George Floyd. He was an African American man who was killed while in the custody of four Minneapolis, Minnesota, police officers. As I watched the protests on CNN, I thought to myself that not all is not lost. That Lady Liberty’s flame—while faintly flickering—was being tended to by her aroused and outraged ardent supporters who placed their bodies on the line (willing to pay the ultimate price and lay their bodies down) to ensure that life, liberty, and freedom, remains a possibility in America.” — John R. Hall
- “In Trump, the Republicans have hit the jackpot. He is the embodiment of Goebbels and Hitler combined—a rabid racist and a narcissistic tyrant with P. T. Barnum’s flair for self-promotion and an ability to sell lit torches to a nation drenched in gasoline.” — John R. Hall
- “A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against his government.” — Edward Abbey
- “I was not proud of what I had learned, but I never doubted that it was worth knowing.” — Hunter S. Thompson
- “There are never enough seats on the last train out of the station.” — Hunter S. Thompson
- “Come writers and critics who prophesize with your pen, and keep your eyes wide the chance won’t come again.” — Bob Dylan
- “The world is still a weird place, despite my efforts to make clear and perfect sense of it.” — Hunter S. Thompson
- “I don’t think that my kind of journalism has ever been universally popular.” — Hunter S. Thompson
- “Mine’s a tale that can’t be told. My freedom I hold dear.” — Robert Plant
- “The job of the newspaper is to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable.” — Finley Peter Dunne
- “When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro.” — Hunter S. Thompson
- “What’s so funny ‘bout peace, love, and understanding?” — Elvis Costello
- “You better take care of me Lord, if you don’t, you’re gonna have me on your hands.” — Hunter S. Thompson
- “Preach the Gospel at all times. When necessary, use words.” — St. Francis of Assisi
- “The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter.” — Winston Churchill
- “Man will never be free until the last king is strangled with the entrails of the last priest.” — Denis Diderot
- “Every normal man must be tempted, at times, to spit on his hands, hoist the black flag, and begin slitting throats.” — H. L. Mencken
- “The trouble with Communism is the Communists, just as the trouble with Christianity is the Christians.” — H. L. Mencken
- “On some great and glorious day, the plain folks of the land will reach their heart’s desire at last, and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron.” — H. L. Mencken
- “I went down where the vultures feed. I would’ve got deeper, but there wasn’t any need. Heard the tongues of angels and the tongues of men. Wasn’t any difference to me.” — Bob Dylan
- “Every decent man is ashamed of the government he lives under.” — H. L. Mencken
- “So many roads—so much at stake. So many dead ends, I’m at the edge of the lake. Sometimes I wonder what it’s gonna take . . . to find dignity.” — Bob Dylan
- “If you’re not going to offend somebody, you don’t need the First Amendment.” — Larry Flint
- “Let’s resolve not to be turkeys voting for Thanksgiving!” — Christiane Amanpour
- “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.” — Edmund Burke
- “Pain reaches the heart with electrical speed, but truth moves to the heart as slowly as a glacier.” — Barbara Kingsolver
- “Memory is a complicated thing, a relative to truth, but not its twin.” — Barbara Kingsolver
- “What keeps you going isn’t some fine destination but just the road you’re on, and the fact that you know how to drive.” — Barbara Kingsolver
- “Football combines the two worst things about America: it is violence punctuated by committee meetings.” — George F. Will
- “The most dangerous man to any government is the man who is able to think things out for himself, without regard to the prevailing superstitions and taboos. Almost inevitably he comes to the conclusion that the government he lives under is dishonest, insane, and intolerable.” — H. L. Mencken
- “It was zero threat, right from the start. . . Some of them went in, and they are hugging and kissing the police and the guards. . . A lot of the people were waved in, and then they walked in and they walked out.” — "The Donald" Trump on the storming of America's Capitol building on January 6, 2021, which left five dead, and others committing suicided because they did not feel worthy of all the love Trump spoke about.
- “Mothers all want their sons to grow up to be president, but they don’t want them to become politicians in the process.” — John Fitzgerald Kennedy
- “Those who are too smart to engage in politics are punished by being governed by those who are dumber.” — Plato
- “The more you observe politics, the more you’ve got to admit that each party is worse than the other.” — Mark Twain
- “Men write many fine and plausible arguments in support of monarchy, but the fact remains that where every man has a voice, brutal laws are impossible.” — Mark Twain
- “Let us never forget that government is ourselves and not an alien power over us. The ultimate rulers of our democracy are not a president and senators and congressmen and government officials, but the voters of this country.” — Franklin D. Roosevelt
- “Democracy is the only system that persists in asking the powers that be whether they are the powers that ought to be.” — Sydney J. Harris
- “How come we choose from just two people to run for president and fifty for Miss America?” — Anonymous
- “The word politics is derived from the word poly, meaning many, and the word ticks, meaning blood sucking parasites.” — Larry Hardiman
- “No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed, it has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.” — Sir Winston Churchill
- “No man is good enough to govern another man without the other’s consent.” — Abraham Lincoln
- “All government without the consent of the governed is the very definition of slavery.” — Jonathan Swift
- “The taxpayers are sending congressmen on expensive trips abroad. It might be worth it except they keep coming back.” — Mark Twain
- “Politicians and diapers have one thing in common—they both should be changed regularly and for the same reason!” — José Maria de Eça de Queiroz
- “The great artists of the world are never Puritans, and seldom even ordinarily respectable. No virtuous man — that is, virtuous in the Y.M.C.A. sense — has ever painted a picture worth looking at, or written a symphony worth hearing, or a book worth reading.” — H. L. Mencken
- “Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard.” — H. L. Mencken
- “No one ever went broke underestimating the taste of the American public.” — H. L. Mencken
- “Puritanism: The haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be happy.” — H. L. Mencken
- “At the top of the mountain we are all snow leopards.” — Hunter S. Thompson
- “It was morality that burned the books of the ancient sages, and morality that halted the free inquiry of the Golden Age and substituted for it the credulous imbecility of the Age of Faith. It was a fixed moral code and a fixed theology which robbed the human race of a thousand years by wasting them upon alchemy, heretic-burning, witchcraft and sacerdotalism.” — H. L. Mencken
- “Now is the time for all good men to come to the aid of their country.” — Charles E. Weller (believe it or not, that originated as a typing drill—go figure)
- “When we have done our best, we should wait the result in peace.” — John Lubbock
- “‘They’re a rotten crowd,’ I shouted across the lawn. ‘You’re worth the whole damn bunch put together.’” — F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby
- “The true patriot scrutinizes the actions of his own government with unceasing vigilance. And when his government violates the morality and rightness associated with principles of individual freedom and private property, he immediately rises in opposition to his government.” — Jacob G. Hornberger.
- “The core issue facing the American people is this: Have the guardians become the terrorists?” — Jacob G. Hornberger
- Any state, any entity, any ideology that fails to recognize the worth, the dignity, the rights of man, that state is obsolete.” — Rod Serling
- “You must not gamble your children’s future on the flip of a coin. Instead, you must unite behind the science.” — Greta Thunberg
- “No one in this world, so far as I know—and I have searched the records for years and employed agents to help me—has ever lost money by underestimating the intelligence of the great masses of the plain people. Nor has anyone ever lost public office thereby.” — H. L. Mencken
- “There is nothing which I dread so much as a division of the republic into two great parties, each arranged under its leader, and concerting measures in opposition to each other. This, in my humble apprehension, is to be dreaded as the greatest political evil under our Constitution.” — President John Adams
- “Richard Nixon has never been one of my favorite people anyway. For years I’ve regarded his existence as a monument to all the rancid genes and broken chromosomes that corrupt the possibilities of the American Dream; he was a foul caricature of himself, a man with no soul, no inner convictions, with the integrity of a hyena and the style of a poison toad. The Nixon I remembered was absolutely humorless; I couldn’t imagine him laughing at anything except maybe a paraplegic who wanted to vote Democratic but couldn’t quite reach the lever on the voting machine.” — Hunter S. Thompson
- “There are men running governments who shouldn’t be allowed to play with matches.” — Will Rogers
- “I am no bird; and no net ensnares me; I am a free human being with an independent will.” — Charlotte Bronte
- “Catastrophic events that descend from earth’s atmosphere or rise from its geological depths have no prejudices. Mother Nature couldn’t care less if you’re black or white or some other hue; she pays no attention to your sex or your sexuality; your religion is of no concern to her. She is truly the only equal-opportunity entity—she’ll kick anyone’s ass.” — John R. Hall
- “It is in vain to say human beings ought to be satisfied with tranquility: they must have action; and they will make it if they cannot find it.” — Charlotte Bronte
- “A hero is someone who understands the responsibility that comes with his freedom.” — Bob Dylan
- “To announce that there must be no criticism of the President, or that we are to stand by the President, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public.” — President Teddy Roosevelt
- “I unfortunately proved what I set out to prove, and it was more a political point than a local election, and I think the original reason was to prove it to myself, that the American Dream really is fucked.” — Hunter S. Thompson
- “The last train out of any station will not be full of nice guys.” — Hunter S. Thompson
- “The least factual but most accurate is not dichotomous. Because as any sniper knows, it is accuracy that truly counts—not the fact that you fired a shot.” — John R. Hall
- “A belief is not merely an idea the mind possesses; it is an idea that possesses the mind.” — Robert Bolton
- “Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear, not absence of fear.” — Mark Twain
- “The man who follows the crowd will usually get no further than the crowd. The man who walks alone is likely to find himself in places no one has ever been.” — Alan Ashley-Pitt
- “Too many people spend money they haven’t earned, to buy things they don’t want, to impress people they don’t like.” — Will Rogers
- “For death begins with life’s first breath; And life begins at the touch of death.” — John Oxenham
- “Because we do not know when we will die, we think of life as an inexhaustible well.” — Brandon Lee
- “It is better to be an outspoken atheist than a hypocrite.” — George Harrison
- “Suicide is not chosen—it happens when pain exceeds resources for coping with pain.” — David L. Conroy
- “People are like stained glass windows: they sparkle and shine when the sun is out, but when the darkness sets in their true beauty is revealed only if there is a light within.” — Elizabeth Kubler-Ross
- “Our Individuality makes us unique; our abnormality makes us interesting.” — Author Unknown
- “If your mind is closed, please do likewise with your mouth.” — John R. Hall
- “One never notices what has been done; one can only see what remains to be done.” — Marie Curie
- “Dignity does not consist in possessing honors, but in deserving them.” — Aristotle
- “If you treat men the way they are you never improve them. If you treat them the way you want them to be, you do.” — Goethe
- “Being defeated is often a temporary condition. Giving up is what makes it permanent.” — Marilyn vos Savant
- “You say you love your children above all else and yet you are stealing their future in front of their very eyes.” — Greta Thunberg
- “There is only one thing more painful than learning from experience and that is not learning from experience.” — Archibald McLeish
- “How things look on the outside of us depends on how things are on the inside of us.” — Parks Cousins
- “One owes respect to the living. To the dead one owes only truth.” — Voltaire
- “How can a government ignore the fact that it stole the land it occupies while referring to other people occupying the same land as illegals?”— John R. Hall
- “To live is like to love—all reason is against it, and all healthy instinct for it.” — Samuel Butler
- “Never be afraid to try something new. Remember, amateurs built the ark. Professionals built the Titanic.” — Author Unknown
- “Thoughts of what may come are worthy of our fleeting time. By looking back, we set ourselves upon a carousel of confusion. A merry-go-round that will not end in merriment. It’s a vicious cycle—waking up to only ponder yesterday. It sets you running headstrong forward while looking back. That can only lead to dead ends. Where you must race back, to where you began. Then you wake up one morning to find that many years have passed you by. Then you ponder lost time. It’s best not to find yourself lagging behind, dwelling on life’s missed opportunities—or brooding over lost love. Life is to be lived; it should not be spent reliving it. Unfortunately, it is a human trait to carry emotional baggage in the form of unpaid invoices for psychological damage. Those philosophical bills will always remain in arrears; they can never be fully satisfied.” — John R. Hall
- “Damaged people are dangerous; they know they can survive.” — Josephine Hart
- “The reality of the other person lies not in what he reveals to you but in what he cannot reveal to you. Therefore, if you would understand him, listen not to what he says but rather to what he does not say.” — Kahlil Gibran
- “Love starts with a smile, grows with a kiss, and ends with a tear.” — St. Augustin
- “For what is evil but good tortured by its own hunger and thirst?” — Kahlil Gibran
- “You know, I’ve learned that you can’t make someone love you. All you can do is stalk them, hope they panic, and give in.” — Allison Morgan
- “Instead of complaining that rose bushes have thorns, rejoice that thorn bushes bloom.” — Author Unknown
- “It’s easy to identify people who can’t count to ten. They’re in front of you in the supermarket express lane.” — June Henderson.
- “All Religions come down to the same two things. Faith and Doubt. Faith to be Virtuous and Doubt to Sin.” — Author Unknown
- “Darkness brings to light more things than light itself.” — Anonymous
- “When we lose the right to be different, we lose the privilege to be free.” — Charles Evans Hughes
- “The person who tries to live alone will not succeed as a human being. His heart withers if it does not answer another heart. His mind shrinks away if he hears only the echoes of his own thoughts and finds no other inspiration.” — Pearl S. Buck
- “Fear is nothing but the anticipation of pain, be it physical, mental, spiritual or emotional.” — Author Unknown
- “Do not follow where the path may lead. Go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.” — Muriel Strode
- “Conformity is the jailer of freedom and the enemy of growth.” — John F. Kennedy
- “There are two kinds of pedestrians . . . the quick and the dead.” — Thomas Dewar
- “Obstacles are things a person sees when he takes his eyes off his goal.” — E. Joseph Cossman
- “Half our life is spent trying to find something to do with the time we have rushed through life trying to save.” — Will Rogers
- “When I hear somebody sigh, ‘Life is hard,’ I am always tempted to ask: Compared to what?” — Sydney J. Harris
- “I think I am in Hell, therefore I am there.” — Jean-Nicholas Arthur Rimbaud
- “We have a situation where we're looking very strongly at sinks and showers, and other elements of bathrooms ... You turn on the faucet and you don't get any water … People are flushing toilets 10 times, 15 times.” — President Donald Trump
- “A child becomes an adult when he realizes that he has a right not only to be right but also to be wrong.” — Thomas Szasz
- “A great many people think they are thinking when they are merely rearranging their prejudices.” — William James
- “I can picture in my mind a world without war, a world without hate. And I can picture us attacking that world because they’d never expect it.” — Jack Handey
- “The true secret of giving advice is, after you have honestly given it, to be perfectly indifferent to whether it is taken or not, and never persist in trying to set people right.” — Hannah Whitall Smith
- “A dog is the only thing on earth that loves you more than he loves himself.” — Josh Billings
- “People are taking their comedians seriously and the politicians as a joke, when it used to be vice versa.” — Will Rogers
- “The game of life is not so much in holding a good hand as playing a poor hand well.” — H. T. Leslie
- “The hardest thing to learn in life is which bridge to cross and which to burn.” — David Russell
- “It takes a minute to have a crush on someone, an hour to like someone, and a day to love someone . . . but it takes a lifetime to forget someone.” ― Kahlil Gibran
- “Fiction is the truth inside the lie.” — Stephen King
- “Our hearts are drunk with a beauty, our eyes could never see.” — George W. Russell
- “No person is your friend who demands your silence, or denies your right to grow.” — Alice Walker
- “A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty.” — Sir Winston Churchill
- “Do not pray for an easy life, pray for the strength to endure a difficult one.” — Bruce Lee
- “Everyone tries to define this thing called Character. It’s not hard. Character is doing what’s right when nobody’s looking.” — J. C. Watts
- For those who understand, no explanation is needed. For those who do not understand, no explanation is possible.” ― Ziad K. Abdelnou
- “Dreams are the best thing reality has to offer.” — Thomas Gottschall
- “Death will come; there’s no escaping it. Death should not be feared, but rather viewed as an old lost friend who will find us. That way, we will not be afraid.” — John R. Hall
- “Pain is an illusion of the senses. Despair is an illusion of the mind.” — Mortarion
- “Change is coming, whether you like it or not.” — Greta Thunberg
- “In life, we weep at the thought of death. Perhaps in death, we weep at the thought of life.” — Earl Carol
- “The hardest thing in life is watching the one you love, love someone else.” — Author Unknown
- “Men talk of killing time, while time quietly kills them.” ― Dion Boucicault
- “If you’re going to be crazy, you have to get paid for it or else you’re going to be locked up.” ― Hunter S. Thompson
- “I’d rather have a full bottle in front of me than a full-frontal lobotomy.” — Fred Allen
- “Moral indignation is jealousy with a halo.” — H. G. Wells
- “The optimist proclaims that we live in the best of all possible worlds, and the pessimist fears this is true.” — James Branch Cabell
- “Why should I be studying for a future that soon may be no more, when no one is doing anything to save that future? And what is the point of learning facts when the most important facts clearly mean nothing to our society?” — Greta Thunberg
- “Drawing dead is a poker term meaning that there is no way to win. Knowing when you are drawing dead in any of life’s situations results in obtaining the upper hand (pun intended).” — John R. Hall
- “Truth is stranger than fiction, but it is because Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities; Truth isn’t.” — Mark Twain
- “News is what the powerful want to keep hidden.” — Dan Rather
- “Apps have enslaved humanity while giving omnipresent, omnipotent capabilities to those in powerful positions in government and corporations.” — John R. Hall
- “When a political opponent resorts to the racist card, it’s a sure sign of moral bankruptcy: there’s no decent argument left in the armoury.” ― Alex Morritt
- “When a law is morally bankrupt, true patriots disobey it, fight it, and eventually change it. There is no finer example of that patriotic duty in action than what occurred in overturning slavery and Jim Crow laws.” — John R. Hall
- “Down through the ages, there has always been the spiritual path. It’s been passed on—it always will be—and if anybody ever wants it in any age, it’s always there.” — George Harrison
- “All the world is birthday cake, so take a piece, but not too much.” — George Harrison
- “If you don’t know where you’re going, any road will take you there.” — George Harrison
- “When you’ve seen beyond yourself, then you may find, peace of mind is waiting there.” — George Harrison
- “You’re failing us, but the young people are starting to understand your betrayal. The eyes of all future generations are upon you. And if you choose to fail us, I say: we will never forgive you.” — Greta Thunberg
- “You all come to us young people for hope. How dare you!” — Greta Thunberg
- “I have told many people: ‘You need Jesus!’ For the record, when an atheist tells you that you need Jesus, you know that things are bad; that the shit has hit the fan.” — John R. Hall
- “The illusion of Reagan’s Shining City on a Hill had either evaporated or slid off its slimy slope and disappeared back into the muck and mire of the Machiavellian political minds from whence it was conjured.” — John R. Hall
- “The difference between the right word and the almost right word is the difference between lightning and a lightning bug.” — Mark Twain
- “True patriots love their country enough to confront its government and fight for it to change its evil ways.” — John R. Hall
- “Years ago I started performing and I became an overnight flop; the situation has been deteriorating ever since / I gazed into the abyss and the abyss gazed into me, and neither of us liked what we saw / I am what you call a controversial figure; people either hate me or they despise me / I wanted to be a good man doing wrong, and here I am a bad man doing nothing / I detest everything I stand for / I’m the bride at every funeral; I’m the corpse at every wedding / Each time I look into the mirror I burst into tears / The best thing is not to be born, but who is as lucky as that? / All the great spiritual leaders are dead. Moses is dead. Muhammad is dead. Buddha is dead. And I’m not feeling so hot myself! / At the good hospitals, they let you die; at the bad hospitals, they kill you [At the mediocre hospitals, they force you to live (JRH)] / As long as there is death, there is hope.” — Brother Theodore
- “The most effective way to do it, is to do it.” — Amelia Earhart
- “Loving while fearing is a perplexing state of being.” — John R. Hall
- “America’s current religious and political quandary is nothing new. It’s the same old blind-following-the-blind parade charade.” — John R. Hall
- “Only morons or the mentally compromised could mistake the opening lines of “Born in the U.S.A.” as anything other than a dirge declaring the death of the American dream for the Vietnam vets.” — John R. Hall
- “It is better to be hated for what you are than to be loved for what you are not.” — Andre Gide, Autumn Leaves
- “America is 300 million people all walking in the same direction, singing ‘I Did It My Way.’” — Eric Idle
- “If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear.” ― George Orwell
- “Is America great? Well . . . it sure thinks so. And it wastes precious time postulating greatness instead of simply being great. Unless things change, America's epitaph will be ‘Babylon the great is fallen, is fallen, and has become a dwelling place of demons, a prison for every foul spirit, and a cage for every unclean and hated bird!’” — John R. Hall
- “America is not the land of the free but one of monopolies so predatory they imperil the nation.” — Will Hutton
- “Evil that fails is evil. But evil that succeeds is good.” — Brother Theodore
- “Everything is absolutely revolting and disgusting until I get on stage. Then there’s a metamorphosis . . . otherwise it’s a rat hole.” — Brother Theodore
- “Lately I’ve become quite involved in psychic vibrations. I vibrate whenever I get a chance. I’m full of psychic fluid. I foretell the future; I predict the past. And I don’t need a crystal ball: a football, a tennis ball, a mothball, any ol’ ball will do.” — Brother Theodore
- “Climate activist Greta Thunberg has driven her critics so insane that they would accuse her of hypocrisy and blame her for global warming if they caught her flatulating; passing gas / farting.” — John R. Hall
- “You know a society’s end is nigh when VIP status is a purchasable commodity instead of being bestowed for achievement and/or integrity.” — John R. Hall
- “My momsie and popsie both died years before I was born.” — Brother Theodore
- “An artist is simply trying to survive. At its core, art is a coping mechanism for the artist—and subsequently for the audience.” — John R. Hall
- Thanksgiving Message 2019
“As a nation, we are severed. We are no longer defined or justified by a perseverance toward a dignified united nation where the best of human qualities are sought after and celebrated. We have fallen away from communal grace. We now seek each to his own. The great America spirit is faltering and flaying. It’s being pushed underfoot. It will soon occupy the space being vacated by every vulgar spirit from history. It will be entombed where the worst of humanity is being resurrected. Our darkest demons from our past are being dusted off and welcomed back. They are being celebrated—instead of being cursed as perverse phoenixes. The deceitful notions which are taking hold in our nation need to be tossed back into the dank holes and dark minds from whence they came. To be visited no more. As a nation, we are better than this. We are better than Trump. Happy Thanksgiving” — John R. Hall - “There are times, however, and this is one of them when even being right feels wrong. What do you say, for instance, about a generation that has been taught that rain is poison and sex is death? If making love might be fatal and if a cool spring breeze on any summer afternoon can turn a crystal blue lake into a puddle of black poison right in front of your eyes, there is not much left except TV and relentless masturbation. It’s a strange world. Some people get rich and others eat shit and die.” — Hunter S. Thompson
- “So we shall let the reader answer this question for himself: who is the happier man, he who has braved the storm of life and lived or he who has stayed securely on shore and merely existed?” — Hunter S. Thompson
- “We are all alone, born alone, die alone, and in spite of True Romance magazines—we shall all someday look back on our lives and see that, in spite of our company, we were alone the whole way. I do not say lonely—at least, not all the time—but essentially, and finally, alone. This is what makes your self-respect so important, and I don’t see how you can respect yourself if you must look in the hearts and minds of others for your happiness.” — Hunter S. Thompson
- “Sex without love is as hollow and ridiculous as love without sex.” — Hunter S. Thompson
- “When I want to see Buy American or Make America Great Again baseball caps, T-shirts and bumper stickers, I visit Walmart wherein the shelves are full of non-American goods and contain plenty of the aforementioned nationalistic catchphrases. Causality seems to be an insurmountable concept for the jingoistic.” — John R. Hall
- “I think we should be filling our lives with experiences, not things. Have stories to tell, not stuff to show.” — Elayna Carausu, first mate on the Sailing La Vagabonde
- “I think or believe or guess is akin to assume; none of them stem from fact. Guessing would be apropos when purchasing a lottery ticket, or when deciding whether or not to have faith in a deity.” — John R. Hall
- “The worst vice one possesses is the desire to give advice.” — John R. Hall
- “The objection to Puritans is not that they try to make us think as they do, but that they try to make us do as they think.” — H. L. Mencken
- “To the man with an ear for verbal delicacies—the man who searches painfully for the perfect word and puts the way of saying a thing above the thing said—there is in writing the constant joy of sudden discovery, of happy accident.” — H. L. Mencken
- “The technological era is simultaneously liberating and imprisoning us. It’s the greatest love–hate affair humanity will ever face.” — John R. Hall
- “Sexual intercourse without love is masturbation with a partner. I'm not suggesting that that is a bad thing. I’m simply pointing out what should be obvious.” — John R. Hall
- “My childish mind thought that maybe God didn’t care about me. I later came to believe that God was probably preoccupied with more pressing matters. Like explaining design choices to platypuses, giraffes, orangutans, Donald J. Trump, etc. Or explaining multiple pigmentation selections to nonwhites.” — John R. Hall
- “I just start kissing them. It's like a magnet. Just kiss. I don't even wait. And when you're a star they let you do it . . . Grab them by the pussy. You can do anything.” — "The Donald" J. Trump
- “Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people.” — Eleanor Roosevelt
- “No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.” — Eleanor Roosevelt
- “Notwithstanding Pascal’s wager, God, to me, on his best days is nothing but an absentee slumlord—much like President Trump. Whoa?! Wait a minute. Maybe Trump is the “Chosen One.” — John R. Hall
- “When the human species finally ceases to exist, all the other creatures remaining alive on earth will collectively and justifiably breathe a sigh of relief. Ticktock, unless things change, the planet’s exhale of relief is not that far off.” — John R. Hall
- “Read like a wolf eats. Read when they tell you not to read. And read what they tell you not to read.” — Gary Paulsen
- “The creative mind creates—the uncreative mind either mocks what it does not like or praises what it enjoys; critics do not create; they only elevate or destroy.” — John R. Hall
- “I think the trick is that you have to use words well enough so that these nickel-and-dimers who come around bitching about being objective or the advertisers don't like it are rendered helpless by the fact that it's good. That's the way people have triumphed over conventional wisdom in journalism.” — Hunter S. Thompson
- “We can have a lot of fun tonight. I have nothing to do. Nothing. Nothing.” — Donald Trump (at a rally with his rabid faithful in attendance while he occupied the White House)
- “Religion and natural disasters and pandemics expose the most endearing and despicable qualities living and lurking inside of humans.” — John R. Hall
- “I have never understood what possesses people to say, ‘I am not political.’ How is it justifiable to be politically disengaged when our lives and our choices are governed by politicians? (That is a rhetorical question because it is unjustifiable.) To paraphrase Plato: Those who are too busy, or are too aloof, or are too smart, or are too dumb, to engage in politics will be punished by being governed by those who are dumber and could not care less about those who are politically disconnected.” — John R. Hall
- "This is why I take such exception with Donald J. Trump. He is an unseemly man—from deep within his core to the top layer of his epidermis. He is an egomaniac driven by the most narcissistic personality the world has ever seen. He is arrogant, selfish, greedy, and conceited. Through and through, he is a man of ill repute” — John R. Hall
- “Out of sight, out of mind, is a fatal fallacy.” — John R. Hall
- “I have no taste for either poverty or honest labor, so writing is the only recourse left for me.” — Hunter S. Thompson
- “Who does vote for these dishonest shitheads? Who among us can be happy and proud of having all this innocent blood on our hands [i.e.: Vietnam, the Iraq War, COVID-19, systemic racism, police brutality, ad infinitum]? Who are these swine? These flag-sucking half-wits who get fleeced and fooled by stupid little rich kids like George Bush [and the Donald]? They are the same ones who wanted to have Muhammad Ali locked up for refusing to kill gooks [and Black Lives Matter silenced, and wanted Colin Kaepernick jailed, or better yet: killed!]. They speak for all that is cruel and stupid and vicious in the American character. They are the racists and hate mongers among us—they are the Ku Klux Klan. I piss down the throats of these Nazis. And I am too old to worry about whether they like it or not. Fuck them.” — Hunter S. Thompson
- “In Trump, the Republicans have hit the jackpot. He is the embodiment of Goebbels and Hitler combined—a rabid racist and a narcissistic tyrant with P. T. Barnum’s flair for self-promotion and an ability to sell lit torches to a nation drenched in gasoline.” — John R. Hall
- “My American pride was at an all-time high when I witnessed a cross-section of the United States population take to the streets demanding justice for George Floyd. He was an African American man who was killed while in the custody of four Minneapolis, Minnesota, police officers. As I watched the protests on CNN, I thought to myself that not all is not lost. That Lady Liberty’s flame—while faintly flickering—was being tended to by her aroused and outraged ardent supporters who placed their bodies on the line (willing to pay the ultimate price and lay their bodies down) to ensure that life, liberty, and freedom, remains a possibility in America.” — John R. Hall
- “Everything will be okay in the end. If it’s not okay, it’s not the end.” — John Lennon
- “When I write, I am in my time and place. When you read what I wrote, you are in your time and place, which could be years later and far away. Yet we are connected, mind to mind.” — Victor Boc
- “Life is very short, indeed; that is a truth we too often eschew to avoid accepting our unavoidable mortality. Because if we lived as if we knew we were dying, we just might be more compassionate to one another. Ignoring the truth that life is very short allows us to say, ‘I’ll be a better person tomorrow.’ But tomorrow never comes.” — John R. Hall
- “Being psychologically insulated and isolated and fortified by emotional detachment gets one through the night—but it is a recipe for insanity.” — John R. Hall
- “The real problem with writing a book in this day and age and trying to get it noticed is that America is a soundbite society with an attention span which is measured in nanoseconds.” — John R. Hall
- “Chicken Little (circa 2020): ‘Forget the sky! It’s the Donald that will end the world.’” — John R. Hall
- “I’ve been pronounced dead. I’ve read my own obituaries; they were the best reviews I ever had.” — Elizabeth Taylor
- “Anyway, I trust all is well for you in these trying times; I never thought that America’s USPS (the post office) would be commandeered for political ends: aka the manipulation of an American election. We are truly living in the precursory days—the final free days—of a full-blown autocratic American society. The playbook Trump (and his Republican cohorts in the Senate and Congress) is following is straight out of Berlin (circa 1930s through 1945 ) when Goebbels and Hitler were given free reign by Germany’s politicians, businesses, and a large swath of its citizenry. Ticktock, goes America’s doomsday clock!” — John R. Hall
- “One of God's own prototypes. A high-powered mutant of some kind never even considered for mass production. Too weird to live, and too rare to die.” ― Hunter S. Thompson
- "While writing Red, White, and the Blues, whenever I found myself becoming . . . what shall I say—disillusioned?—I envisioned myself as an old, worn out horse. Physically compromised, but in its mind a seasoned and well-trained thoroughbred racing horse, and in its heart and soul a Triple Crown contender. An old horse: discarded, overlooked by youth, lonely, and heartbroken. Yet, capable of running in one more race if he could get back to the track, run a few practice laps before a time trial and qualify for race day. Well, I have done all that. I am in the track’s stable: ready, willing, and able. Waiting for race day. I just need to be led out to the track and loaded into the starting gate. I wanted one more shot at redemption (be careful what you ask for, because you just might get it). I wanted one more chance . . . and this old horse is about to get it. If the track is solid, the weather fair, and the field honest, then this old horse will best them all! I promise that I will. I am exhausted, right before race day. But I shall rise to the challenge: ‘Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more!' And so, I shall go . . ." — John R. Hall
- “It turned into a drinking contest. Right before I went to bed, I was winning.” — John Prine
- “From Thespis through Shakespeare to Sondheim and beyond, live theater has a long and rich history of being a catalyst for individual and societal change. The power of the proscenium arch is undeniable and without rival. From the stage emanates invigorating commentary addressing social injustices and the indisputable strength of the human spirit to prevail, both can trigger interpersonal reflection by placing audiences in front of a metaphorical mirror. Beyond the fourth wall lies the suspension of disbelief. It is there, in that altered state of mind, when ill-conceived and long-held ideals may be addressed and challenged, and wherein a cathartic release can occur and change be brought about.” — John R. Hall
- “For our own success to be real, it must contribute to the success of others.” — Eleanor Roosevelt
- “My take is that COVID-19 is exposing America as the arrogant, ignorant, spoiled brat, white-male-run nation she has always been. When a nation such as ours, which has never apologize for slavery nor for the genocide of its land’s indigenous people nor for the subjugation of women, refuses to humble itself and acknowledge its trespasses, Donald J. Trump and his conniving crew’s forthcoming high court is the end result. We did not arrive at this place and time in history without warning. We were warned—over and over. The first warning has been attributed to Edmond Buke: ‘The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is that good [people] do nothing.’ In a nation where only about fifty percent of the eligible voters register to vote—and of them only fifty percent vote—then twelve-point-six percent* of the eligible voting population chooses its leaders. Hate, unfortunately, is a greater motivator than love. That is why Hillary lost: they hated her and Trump seized on that hate, and upon the hate of anything that is not white and Christian. In a nutshell, that is how America arrived smack-dab in the middle of a pandemic with no light at the end of the tunnel. At best, Lady Liberty is on the brink of a dead dead road, with an autocratic society surrounding her flanks. Let us hope (because that is all that is Left) that America now hates Trump enough to vote him out of the Oval Office, and that We The People turn away from the dead end road; that there are patriots within the judicial system who will order that the Donald be escorted off the grounds of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue if he refuses to leave; that there are patriots within the Secret Service and military that will follow our longstanding Constitution: that civilians rule America. But know this, the president has the authority to declare martial law. I wrote about Trump and martial law in Red, White, and the Blues (page 313, last paragraph). My musings now seem less amusing and not so farfetched. Ticktock. *100 eligible, 50 register, 25 vote, 12.6 swing the election.” — John R. Hall
- “’I have been on a highway to hell my entire life, and I am now fine with that destination—especially if Donald J. Trump is granted access into heaven.” — John R. Hall
- “There are more similarities between Trump and Hitler than there are dissimilarities. Basically, Trump uses the same rhetoric and same offer of hope that Hitler used, including that "he" alone can fix it by returning America to its . . . fill in the blank. Like Hitler's phoenix-esque resurrection after his failed Beer Hall Putsch, Trump's fifteen minutes of shame is not over simply because of his 2020 election loss. He'll be back—and he will strike down with great vengeance and furious violence upon all those who opposed him. Ticktock . . . history is poised to once again repeat itself. Humans: a silly species which seems incapable of learning anything from history except that it learns nothing from history.” — John R. Hall
- “It’s so cute when they have hope, and at the same time so tragic.” — John R. Hall
- “Once one has been imprisoned by being shown the way, breaking free is tedious, at best.” — John R. Hall
- “In Rachel Kushner's New Yorker piece, “Coming of age on the streets of San Francisco,” which was taken from her book The Hard Crowd: Essays 2000-2020, she exposes a question that she believed struggling drug addicts ask themselves. It intrigued me for many reasons, but mainly because I think Kushner also knows that most people subconsciously ask themselves the same nagging question—unaware, to be sure; nevertheless, it is there. Shakespeare asked the same question, too, but using the words of his day: ‘to be or not to be . . .’ Rachel’s Shakespearian and, to a degree, Darwin-esque internal struggle centers on ‘The glamour of death, or the banality of survival: which is it going to be?’” — John R. Hall
- “The process of writing a book is not unsimilar to the process of rehearsing before a performance. The preparation is a lonely, private affair—even if collaborators are involved. Throughout the entire creative process, there’s an unrelenting, nagging knowledge that an audience will be exposed to one’s art, and this gives one great pause. The reality and constant awareness that people will see one’s creativity permeates the whole process, triggering anguish over each verbal inflection and physical motion for the performer—and over each word, punctuation mark, font stylization, sentence transition, design, and layout of the final product for the writer. It’s not natural to stand exposed for all to see. It is enticingly nerve-racking. It’s yin and yang at its finest. It is a curse to be an artist.” — John R. Hall
- “At the end of the day, I'd rather be excluded for who I include, than be included for who I exclude.” — Unknown
- “Be well, do good work, and keep in touch” (Garrison Keillor, A Prairie Home Companion).
- “When in doubt, deny everything, and order a triple-pour of well-aged whiskey.” — John R. Hall
- “A word to the wise: when the muses pass by an artist better do everything in their power to coax them closer before they depart for more fertile soil.” — John R. Hall
- "'It won't be long now,' said the hooker as she rose from her knees." — John R. Hall
- “Time is the greatest currency. To save time, hire, to save money, learn. But, rarely can one save both. It costs to be the boss: either cash or time—and at times being El Jefe requires lots of both. ” — John R. Hall
- “When you loved someone and had to let them go, there will always be that small part of yourself that whispers, ‘What was it that you wanted and why didn’t you fight for it?’” ― Shannon L. Alder
- “If you want to tell people the truth, make them laugh, otherwise they'll kill you.” — Oscar Wilde
- “Luck is a very thin wire between survival and disaster, and not many people can keep their balance on it.” — Hunter S. Thompson
- “We are a part of nature. If we protect nature, we protect ourselves.” — Greta Thunberg
- “I tried to contain myself... but I escaped!” — Gary Paulsen
- “A man who views the world the same at 50 as he did at 20 has wasted 30 years of his life.”— Muhammad Ali
- “We are the common denominator in all of our failed relationships and failures. Maybe, it's time to stop laying blame elsewhere. When we point our index finger at someone or something else, there are three fingers pointing right back at us!” — John R. Hall
- “ … ” — You
