"Suicide, especially one as violent as Cobain's, is the loudest possible invocation of silence; it's a perfectly clear way of turning your life into a mystery."

At the turn of the millennium, “Der Dean” opined on the trials and tribulations of fellow rock critics Lester Bangs, Nick Tosches, and Richard Meltzer

Jerry Lee Lewis is damned, says his cousin Jimmy Lee Swaggart, and so are the profane Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker. O Jesus help us, the demons are everywhere — in the IRS and in the PTL, in the computer and in our crotches, and most certainly in the hellfire of rock ’n’ roll. Let us pray.

"What puts the lie to such emancipation proclamations is that all the aforementioned are yer super-blacks, Biggers so baad thay can’t help but outshine (no pun intended much) the honkie competition."

“I guess she was per­fect for him — they could beat each other up every night and nobody’d mind. They had real fights.”