Naked

I haven't the slightest idea how to change people, but still I keep a long list of prospective candidates just in case I should ever figure it out.

We were not a hugging people. In terms of emotional comfort it was our belief that no amount of physical contact could match the healing powers of a well made cocktail.

Every gathering has its moment. As an adult, I distract myself by trying to identify it, dreading the inevitable downswing that is sure to follow. The guests will repeat themselves one too many times, or you'll run out of dope or liquor and realize that it was all you ever had in common.

College is the best thing that can ever happen to you," my father used to say, and he was right, for it was there that I discovered drugs, drinking, and smoking..

I was a smart-ass, born and raised. This had been my curse and would continue to be so.

What I really hated, of course, was my mind. There must have been an off switch somewhere, but I was damned if I could find it.

I giggled out loud at his stupidity. If anyone knew how to make a bed, it was a faggot.

I've always had a way with the little people, making it a point to humor them without looking down my nose at their wasted empty lives.

The Greeks had invented democracy, built the Acropolis and called it a day.

As bad a dresser as I am, anything beats being judged by my character.

I’d always been afraid of sick people, and so had my mother. It wasn’t that we feared catching their brain aneurysm or accidentally ripping out their IV. I think it was their fortitude that frightened us. Sick people reminded us not of what we had, but of what we lacked. Everything we said sounded petty and insignificant; our complaints paled in the face of theirs, and without our complaints, there was nothing to say.

Motherfucker, you try that again and I'll come in there with a fucking coat hanger and give you something to fucking kick about

If nothing else, life in the suburbs promised that you might go from day to day without finding shit in your hair.

We give anonymously because the sackfuls of thank-you letters break our hearts with their clumsy handwriting and hopeless phonetic spelling.

He has a passport," my classmates would whisper. "Quick, let's run before he judges us!

Right, I breast feed baby camels in my backyard just for the freaking fun of it. Just tell me where you live, Pinocchio, and save the baloney for lunch.

Watching him was like opening the door to a siniging telegram; you know it's supposed to be entertaining, but you can't get beyond the sad fact that this person actually thinks he bringing some joy into your life. Somewhere he had a mother who sifted through a shoe box of mimeographed playbills, pouring herself another drink and wondering when her son would come to his senses and swallow some drain cleaner.

Motherfucker, you haven't got the fucking balls God gave a goddamned church mouse. You crawled out of your mama's tattered old pussy, grabbed hold of her milk stained titties, and you ain't never looked back, motherfucker.

They're hungry for something they know nothing about, but we, we know all too well that the price of fame is the loss of privacy.

My hands tend to be full enough dealing with people who hate me for _who_ I am. Concentrate too hard on the millions who hate you for _what_ you are and you're likely to turn into one of those unkempt, sloppy dressers who sag beneath the weight of the two hundred political buttons they wear pinned to their coats and knapsacks. I haven't got the slightest idea of how to change people, but still I keep a long list of prospective candidates just in case I should ever figure it out.

You just take and take don´t you? Out there with your thumb in the air—not a care in the world, just grabbing whatever you can get. Yes, sir, you just take and take until you´re ready to burst. But what about giving? Did you ever think about that? Of course not—you´re too busy taking, Mr. Handout, Mr. Gimmee, Gimmee, Gimmee. Me, I´m what you call a ´taxpayer.´ Tax, it´s a... tariff that working people have to pay so that someone like yourself can enjoy a life of leisure. I give and give until I´ve got nothing left! Nothing! Then I turn around and give some more. I give and I give to all of Uncle Sam´s little takers, every last one of you, but what´s in it for me? I´ve been thinking that maybe it´s time I get a little something in retum. Yes, indeed, maybe it´s about time we try that shoe on the other foot for a change. You, my young friend, are going to wash my car inside and out. And you´re going to pay for it!

What are you, tap dancing up there? You want a put on a show, do you? Well, the theater's closed for the night. Take your act on the road; it's four o'clock in the morning,goddamnit.

the beauty of an art school: as long as you can pay the tuition, they will never, even in the gentlest way, suggest that you have no talent.

You have how many children in your family?" the teacher would ask. "I'm guessing you must be Catholic, am I right?

The thought of killing myself had slowed me down to five miles per hour. The thought of killing someone else stopped me completely.

The thing to remeber is that more than anything in this world, these colored people wish they were white.

The whole notion of the nursing home was something dreamed up by people like my mother; American women with sunglasses, always searching for their tanning lotion or cigarette lighters.

Someone in our family had taken to wiping his or her ass on the bath towels. What made this exceptionally disturbing was that all our towels were fudge-colored. You’d be drying your hair when, too late, you noticed an unmistakable odor on your hands, head, and face.

the lower bunks, both of us longing to be pinned. “You kids think you invented sex,” my mother was fond of saying. But hadn’t we? With no instruction manual or federally enforced training period, didn’t we all come away feeling we’d discovered something unspeakably modern?