Earl M.

“All literature, highbrow or low, from the Aeneid onward, is fan fiction....Through parody and pastiche, allusion and homage, retelling and reimagining the stories that were told before us and that we have come of age loving--amateurs--we proceed, seeking out the blank places in the map that our favorite writers, in their greatness and negligence, have left for us, hoping to pass on to our own readers--should we be lucky enough to find any--some of the pleasure that we ourselves have taken in the stuff that we love: to get in on the game. All novels are sequels; influence is bliss.”
― Michael Chabon, Maps and Legends: Reading and Writing Along the Borderlands

“America is the only nation in history which, miraculously, has gone directly from barbarism to degeneration without the usual interval of civilisation.”
― Georges Clémenceau

“Don't let your mouth write a check that your ass can't cash, son.”
― Charles Portis, Norwood