"I just want the bullying to stop. That is all I ever wanted. I used to love going to school. Now I hate it."

“Creativity comes from the part of the brain that is veritable soup of experiences, memories and influences. We really don't like to start questioning exactly where it comes from, in case it stops coming.”

“Power from any source tends to create an appetite for additional power. It was almost inevitable that the super-rich would one day aspire to control not only their own wealth, but the wealth of the whole world. To achieve this, they were perfectly willing to feed the ambitions of the power-hungry political conspirators who were committed to the overthrow of all existing governments and the establishment of a central worldwide dictatorship.”

“The scientific nature of the ordinary man is to go out and do the best you can.”

Source : Song: Humidity Built The Snowman

“The pain is there; when you close one door on it, it knocks to come in somewhere else...”

“The business of beauty isn't a natural model; It's built to be the opposite of the cultures we topple. These magazines got you caught in a hustle, Cause when you starve yourself, your body doesn't burn fat, it burns muscles.”

“Yes, I heard my people singing!-in the glow of parlor coal-stove and on summer porches sweet with lilac air, from choir loft and Sunday morning pews-and my soul was filled with their harmonies. Then, too, I heard these songs in the very sermons of my father, for in the Negro's speech there is much of the phrasing and rhythms of folk-song. The great, soaring gospels we love are merely sermons that are sung; and as we thrill to such gifted gospel singers as Mahalia Jackson, we hear the rhythmic eloquence of our preachers, so many of whom, like my father, are masters of poetic speech.”

“This nation, this generation, in this hour has man's first chance to build a Great Society, a place where the meaning of man's life matches the marvels of man's labor.”

“Our myths are so many, our vision so dim, our self-deception so deep and our smugness so gross that scarcely any way now remains of reporting the American Century except from behind the billboards ...”

Source : Nelson Algren (1998). “Nonconformity: Writing on Writing”, p.85, Seven Stories Press