“Never mind the Sex Pistols, here come something for the ass. Namely, the Bad Brains. Baddest hardcore band in the land, living or dead”

“World-weary, battered, unpretentious, Mitchum epitomized postwar masculinity: Here was the conquering hero conquered by self-doubt, who never feared reprisal for confessing this weakness because he could defend himself with a truly terrifying physical strength”

“Most vampire tales I’ve read lately read like little Kinsey reports, full of tasty trivia about vam­pire life, a subject that used to be shrouded in mystery and fear, like sex. Are you ready to open the forbidden curtain?”

“Suppose I had to confront every day, every hour, the question of which side I'm on? Such questions excite and disturb me.”

“Though his work for human rights is unassailable, the books grow worse and worse, the tales of his derring-do more and more farfetched. Finally, without at all forgiving him his lies, one feels sorry for Kosinski.”

“Hell really was the quintessential avant-punk. With no more irony than was mete, he presented his nihilistic narcissism not as youthful hijinx but as a full-fledged philos­ophy/aesthetic”

"Little Richard epitomized everything parents feared about rock and roll. His music was brash and deviate, a screaming rush of inchoate frenzy guaran­teed to get teenage blood boiling."

“A dark pouting model, Diane Delia was the apex of a love triangle at whose base were her accused killers Robert Ferrara and Robyn Arnold.”

“I could not really grasp the fact that this woman, who could be such a perceptive and enjoyable companion, might have lived without shelter and food. She had known something frightening, something that was not civilized.”

“Just as the gospels and Pauline writings were the Bible of Christianity in the past, so 'Leaves of Grass' would be the Bible of Cosmic civilization in the future”