To me, there is nothing more soothing than the song of a mosquito that can't get through the mesh to bite you.

John Fahey, thought during his lifetime to be possibly more than a little crazy, was the author of some thirty albums of gnomically introverted droning guitar instrumentals, which I listened to heavily in my teens and twenties; I even produced an hour or so of banjo music in an imitative John Fahey style.

Normally, most writers don't say, 'I'm going into a mild hypnotic trance.' Typically, they don't know how they do it. Most people, when they have a good experience writing, they're well placed in that state, which is also sometimes called a 'flow state.' If you don't have trouble, you don't have to think about it.

Nothing could have been prevented. But still you know that somehow something wasn't watching. Something let attention lapse, releasing everything that follows, as the weight falls from the air.

I don't call myself a very good Christian, but I think I know one when I see one, and I also think I know when I don't.

In 'For Whom the Bell Tolls,' Hemingway cozies up to revolution by romanticizing it (and not only with those execrable love scenes).