From Maxims & Counsels ...

It has been written by some of the wisest men that one ought never to laugh too much lest one give the impression of being a fool: but life is so uncertain, its pleasures, too often, so limited, that the real foolishness would be to deprive oneself of the pleasure of laughing.

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Whenever it seems the world contains nothing but deceit, selfishness, and betrayal, one ought to keep in mind that one can always buy a dog.

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"Even a dog can get nasty." — But unlike humans, hardly ever to one to whom it owes the most.

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"I don't like dogs, I like cats." Anyone who hears this can be sure he's listening to someone either very stupid or a little depraved.

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To the degree that homosexual men are feminine, they are silly, vain, and incapable of taking an interest in weighty matters; insofar as they are masculine, they are coarse, untrustworthy, and insensitive. How much this says about men and women!

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A man who cannot appreciate the beauty of another man; a woman who cannot see the beauty in another woman; is not likely to see beauty--anywhere.

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For every thousand people who claim to be artists, only one of them is; and for every thousand of these, only one has substantial talent; and only one in a thousand of these will come to prominence. So much for the ambition of the young artist!

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"I live for art." No true artist would ever say that.

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I have a hundred times more respect for a woman pornographer than for a woman "romance" novelist: at least the first one is honest about her ultimate goal.

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It is better to love, than to be loved.  When we love truly, it does not matter to us if we are not loved in turn: the euphoria of our own happiness blinds us to the indifference that meets our embraces.  This is also why people can be deluded into thinking they are engaged in a great love affair, when in fact it is entirely one-sided.

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The wise man never works more than is absolutely necessary to make a living, for he regards life as a means to a greater end; whereas the fool is incapable of seeing beyond the bounds of his own existence and regards everything not directly redounding to it as worthless.

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Be infinitely severe in expecting loyalty from those you love―for the pain of their betrayal, should it occur, is likely to be infinitely great.

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Undoubtedly there is intelligent life on other planets.  For us to doubt this would be to doubt our own existence: just as we gaze up at the starry heavens and wonder, “Is there life out there,” so, in another galaxy, on another planet, in another form wholly different perhaps from ourselves, another being, with a mind as complex, as rational, as full of faults as our own, is also staring up into the night's sky and asking the same question.

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All greatness of intellect and spirit is an aberration.  So much for the notion of "perversion."

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“Ananda, come sit beside me, for I wish to talk with you.”

“Yes, Master."

“Tell me, Ananda, can you imagine a thousand years?”

“Yes, I can imagine it.”

“And what is a thousand years?”

“It is ten times one hundred years, or twice five hundred years.”

“And this is a long time?”

“It is a very long time.”

“Very good. Now, can you imagine a hundred thousand years?”

“Yes.”

“And can you imagine five hundred thousand years?”

“Yes, but that is getting harder.  But yes, I can.”

“And that is a long time?”

“That is a very, very long time.  Very long!”

“Good.  Now, imagine, if you can, a million years.  That is twice five hundred thousand years.  Can you imagine that?”

“Only in a way.  It is a great, great number.  But, yes, I think I can still imagine it.”

“Yes, a million years is almost unimaginable.  And now I will ask you to imagine not a million years, but a hundred times a million years―which is a billion years.  And more than this: I will ask you to imagine a hundred times a billion years.  I know that you cannot imagine such a thing, for no one can.”

“No, no one rationally can.”

“But in the life of the Universe, which is all around us and of which we are a part, even such a great amount of time is negligible.  Do you agree with that?”

“Yes, of course.  For in comparison with the endless time of Infinity, even a billion billion years would be as nothing.  For Infinity is endless, and no designation time can be put upon it.  But why do you ask me these strange questions?”

“Because, Ananda, I would have you keep in mind always how short, even unto meaninglessness, is the life of man.  We are truly as nothing: we are a shadow, an illusion, no sooner here than gone; and the bustle and rush around us, and all the things we want or hope to be, will soon be as though they had not been.  Time is an impatient predator whom we cannot escape and who gobbles us down in the twinkling of an eye.  If you can take this to heart, Ananda―if you can believe in it utterly―if you can conduct your life according to the truth that it indeed is—then no joy or pain will be very great to you, and you will have taken another step along the path to salvation.”

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“I’m so glad I have a lot of work to do today—it makes the day go by so much faster!” Anyone who hears this coming from an office worker may be sure he’s listening to a moron. At the very least it’s a tacit admission of failure in life, since real success is having a job you enjoy so much that you don’t want the day to end.

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We always despise a little what we aren’t able to do.to end. * We always despise a little what we aren’t able to do.

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New Yorkers are sure they’re the most sophisticated people in the world, and certainly a high cut above the average American living west of the Hudson River.  And yet is not the very definition of provincialism a blanket disapproval and discountenancing of people who do not live or think as you do?  Their backwardness is the more laughable because the best minds among them skedaddle from the place the moment they can afford to do so, unwilling—as any really refined soul is—to live amid foul air, stinking streets, and the vulgar scramble for cash that characterizes nearly everyone who lives in New York City.

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Museums, concert halls, and trendy night clubs don’t count for much when, in order to get to them, you’ve got to pass a homeless man peeing or shitting on the sidewalk.  “Culture” becomes a sick joke when it's embellished by puddles of urine and piles of feces.

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In most cases grown children ought to forgive “bad” parents. Unless they beat and starved you, or inflicted on you the psychological torture of relentless belittlement, their shortcomings, such as moments of inattention or impatience, or even years of nagging disapproval, ought to be forgiven. Poor flawed human souls, they did the best they could. Besides, if you could know what they endured in their youth, from their parents, you would probably admire them for not having been worse.

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A hungry intellect in youth may be a source of pride, but it is bound also to contribute to one's solitude, since one's peers are, by virtue of their youth, likely to be ignorant and not interested in things of the mind.  But to have the same hunger in one's old age is surely worse and will contribute even more to a miserable solitude: for then one is confronted by stupid peers whom time has robbed even of the grace of youth, and who are thus doubly disagreeable.   The only refuge for an old intelligent person is another old intelligent person―or obnoxious cynicism.

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A great intellect pales in comparison with a good heart.

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“The reward of art is not fame or success but intoxication: that is why so many bad artists are unable to live without it.”―Cyril Connolly.

Far truer:

“Art is an intoxicant, and whether or not one becomes an artist depends upon the degree to which one is liable to that kind of addiction.”

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Plutarch, in Morals, mentions how a man who sins must carry his own cross to his punishment.  Compare the same notion, repeated time and again, by Carlyle: that the wages of sin is death. And so had Jesus misheard the “eternal sphere melodies”?―had he paid the price for his sins?   One man's sin is another man's sanctity.

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“You ought to be a Christian.”

“But I cannot believe in miracles―it's really just too much nonsense!”

“Then you ought to be a Jew.”

“Which is even more preposterous.”

“Then you ought to be a Moslem.”

“Good heavens!”

“Well, then, be a Buddhist."

“Entirely too intellectual.”

“Then worship idols.”

“Entirely too childish.”

“Then declare yourself an atheist.”

“But the world is full of mysteries!”

“Then you ought to―”

“―My dear sir, excuse me for interrupting you, but please shut up.  I’m quite content to know there are things I'll never know.”

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The more one considers Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, the more one hears the voices of children who have not outgrown their need or custom of a parent figure: they have merely exchanged their earthly parents for Papa-in-the-Sky. And this is understandable, for the first and most consistently inculcated paradigm of existence is that one is weak and needy, and protected and nurtured by all-wise, all-powerful parents. But surely as an adult all this all this mewling and puling for daddy’s protection is undignified. We would and do belittle adult children who rely on elderly parents: why do we not do so in this instance? Surely it is more honorable to stand up in the full vigor of your Manhood, of your Womanhood, and face Eternity and all its dark inscrutabilities with the stout announcement: “Go ahead, do with me what you will! I defy you!” And what is, after all, the worst that can happen to you? Death? That is coming for you in any event.

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Why would anyone want to go to a movie when one could go to a tent revival? Now there's entertainment!

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Writers who hate listening to other writers read their work are the only writers worth reading.

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A writer who gets before an audience in order to read his work is like a clothes horse who luxuriates in relating how much his new suits cost. Idiots! Stop your nonsense! If people want to know who you are, what you have written, what you have to say, then they will buy your books: all else is indulging them in their laziness and pretensions to "culture."

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Old people still concerned about stocks, bonds, and investing may be likened to cows sniffing for hay or grain even as they are prodded along the chute to their slaughter.

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“Intellectuals” have been promoting “diversity” in New York City for the last thirty years: and for the last twenty of them they have been moving out of the place.

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Whenever artists or politicians begin telling you how and where you should live, take especial note of how and where they live.

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To the degree hands are enfeebled by age they grow strong in the pinching of pennies.

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Religion is meant to serve man, not man religion. The moment a given Faith adds to the struggle of life is the moment to dismiss it. God, Who loves His children and wants them to be happy, would not have it any other way.

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Show me a man with a two ounces of intellect, and I'll show you a man who hates to work for a living.

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“Renald, you are hopelessly lazy!” Why, because I was not born with a brain of putty? Idiot!

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Late-term abortions ought to be outlawed as often as early-term abortions ought to be mandated. 

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“Global Warming! Global Warming! Global Warming!”—and yet if it is the result of mankind's activities, even in this the real culprit is never mentioned: Overpopulation.

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People who advocate “conservation” without also advocating population control are like condemned criminals who insist on taking the long route to the electric chair.

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Never expect an honest autobiography from a respectable person:  only an absolute scoundrel is shameless enough to reveal all his shortcomings.

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Liberalism is becoming the new unquestioned Faith of the West, and it will have its own brand of Inquisition.

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If human beings could live a million years, they would still, at the end of it, plead for one more day of life. Life cannot accept its annihilation.

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Secrecy is the best protection against criticism.

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Having recently read a life of St. Francis (Sabatier's), I realize that the fellow had, first, an uneventful life which was not more “saintly” than many another fellow has these days, and that, second, his appellation of “patron saint of animals” is not only ill-deserved but even absurd: a patron saint of animals who has no objection to having them slaughtered? Ridiculous!

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Never trust a “religious” man who isn't a vegetarian―any more than you would trust a man with filthy hands to handle your fine clothes.

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The compassion of Jesus stopped short of souls in four-footed bodies. —So much for his divinity.

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Every Christian, Jewish, and Muslim child ought to be conducted through slaughterhouses at least once a year and plainly and solemnly told: “This is what your religion condones.”

The means whereby mankind will reach the stars is at his fingers’ tips even as he scurries crazily about searching for it. It is not a matter of finding the exotic element, but of transforming the common one.

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Some people look up into the night's sky and ask themselves: “I wonder what people on other planets are like?” It just so happens that they are the people others are wondering about.

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"A stupid worker is a happy worker.” — A truism for the corporate world; and now you know why your "Human Resources Department" keeps hiring imbeciles.

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It isn’t likely that anyone with especially nice sensibilities could fall in love with another human being—surely one of the most malodorous of living creatures.

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Loving someone is the ability to overlook human nature.

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A bald man who makes a habit of wearing caps and hats, or of wearing a beard, may be likened to a man who draws a circle around a scar on his face.

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The critic:  “Sir, inconsistencies exist in your works.”
The writer:  “That is because they were not borne of formulas. ”

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On one occasion:  “Oh, yes, I have a dear friend A— who told me... ”  On another occasion: “Oh, yes, my dear friend B— who lives in …”  On yet another occasion: “Oh, yes, my dear, dear friend C— is taking me ... ”  Be assured that anyone who has this many DEAR FRIENDS has NONE.

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There are only two kinds of people who live celibate lives. The first kind do so unwillingly and are usually normal people who are witty and can be very intelligent. For them celibacy is largely a matter of bad luck, and they always regard it as a liability in their lives, indeed even as a shame and therefore as something they strive to ameliorate. The second kind of people have “chosen” to remain celibate, have always avoided intimacy, and cringe to hear about anything sexual: these are always either social morons or mentally disturbed, and their “chosen” celibacy is actually forced upon them by Nature, which thus prevents the passing along of abnormal genes.

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If you’re eighty and celibate, it’s to be expected. If you’re seventy and celibate, it’s understandable. If you’re sixty and celibate, it’s regrettable. If you’re fifty and celibate, it’s sad. If you’re forty and celibate, it’s a tragedy. If you’re under forty and not still not getting laid, then you really need either to run to a plastic surgeon or to a psychiatrist.

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Conspiracy theories appeal to morons because it enables them to hang on to their unfounded idealism.

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There is no life (i.e., cohesion of the personality) after death, but the next best chance of immortality for the dead is the loving remembrance of them in the minds of the living.

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In singing, a beautiful voice is as nothing compared with an expressive one.

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The Holocaust is a terrible indictment of anti-Semitism; thus anti-Semites crawl all over themslves trying to deny it.

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A woman:  “I would never leave my house in the morning without makeup!”  Quite right.  If only there were similar options for men the world would be a less hideous place.

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In the biographies or hearsay about the lives of well-known artists, one sometimes hears it said that their “success,” that is to say, their eventual recognition, was owing to their “determination,” to their having “never given up,” to their “hard work,” etc. etc. etc. All of these explanations are by the way and always miss the point: namely, that they had no choice in the matter.

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You have to have suffered a great deal in your youth not to worry in the most precarious years of middle age about what the next day will bring.

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Life is always a losing proposition:  thus the existence of religion—and distilleries.

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To the degree that a society becomes averse to war, it becomes prey to enemies whose sensibilities are not so nice. What is true in the schoolyard regarding timid children who get bullied is no less true in the realm of international politics.

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In the United States, there are two kinds of people who are nearly always poor:  those with no education, and those with too much of it.

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A young, beautiful woman: “Dinner? Honey, I’m used to men taking me on trips, giving me money, buying me jewels, cars, anything I want! I’m used to men treating me like a queen!”

My dear, did any of these men ever mention that you’re also a moron?

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You know society is falling apart when tattoos and baldness are considered attractive. Can a bone through the nose be far behind?

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“What do you mean, you don’t 'do' funerals?  Don’t you want anyone to go to your funeral?”   And then people want to know why I think they’re moronic.

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“My son loves school!”

He will achieve nothing important.

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“My son has just received his Ph.D.!”

Congratulations.  Everything original in him has been irrevocably crushed.

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The good man is polite to his inferiors. The great man is often (at least outwardly) deferential to them. Humility is majestic. Kindness, divine.

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Peoples have always fought over land; and these days they are fighting over oil. Soon enough they will be fighting over fresh water. The dolts and morons of the world refuse to believe there are too many people on earth.

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“It has been a bad year for him.

“How so?”

“So many terrible things happened to him!”

“Like what?”

“Well, first he came down with a terrible illness—he was in the most exquisite pain for weeks.  Then his lover left him—his heart was broken utterly.  Then he lost his job—he was terrified of being unable to pay his rent and being thrown out onto the street.  Then his parents died—and he felt entirely abandoned.  Then he became depressed—and had to be medicated.  He was suicidal!”

“What does he do for a living?”

“Well, he had an office job.  But he’s really a writer.”

“A writer?”

“Yes, he writes short stories and novels.”

After some consideration:  “You know, for a moment there you almost had me feeling sorry for him!”

*

Writers have this one advantage over others:  They can turn the worst of their disasters to account.

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The thought that poor people insist on having children will always be a great source of comfort to the wealthy, who may thus rest assured that their descendents will never want for servants or workers.

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“Capital punishment is inhumane!  Let us hope that in the next few years it will be outlawed in every country on earth!”

It’s too bad for Adolf, Hermann, and Heinrich that they appeared in history when they did.  Had they been born fifty years later, and fulfilled their diabolical destiny in a more “compassionate” age, they could have lived out the rest of their lives to ripe old ages.

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When no one will open the door for you, you have only two choices:  either to turn around and leave, or kick it in.

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That nation which is afraid of war will be the first to be conquered.

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What is more unmanly than a “sports” hunter? For not one of these women would be out in the field or forest if her prey were not entirely helpless and could not defend itself by shooting back at her. To kill another creature out of necessity is one thing; to kill it because one takes pleasure in depriving it of life is of all examples of sadistic cowardice the most miserable and disgusting.

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The problem with hiring older workers is not so much that old dogs can’t be taught new tricks but rather that old dogs know that they’re being taught tricks, and have, understandably, grown tired of learning them.  This is as it should be, for what can be more pathetic than the sight of an old dog who is still sitting up, shaking hands, rolling over, and pirouetting on rickety hind legs?  Naiveté may be charming in youth; but in old age it is disgraceful.

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Candidates A, B, and C all have respectable records as members of Congress and are now running for the Presidency.  Each of them has spent years of his life before the public in order to gain, and then to keep, his position and power.  The irony of their ambition  for higher office, or indeed for any office, is that the time they have spent chasing after it was always at the expense of time they might have spent in self- improvement, and that the only politicians worth voting for are the ones who understand that before they can make anything else better they have first to improve themselves.  (The likelihood is that some of them do know this, and are just banking on the likelihood that you do not.)

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“Everyone you know hates you for what you wrote.”
“Not till now did I know how many reasons I had to be proud.”

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People of seventy or eighty years of age who still think they look good are the only ones who deserve to keep living. There is something to be said, after all, for hopelessly magnificent delusions.

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“We must have more money for our schools!”
My friends, you have the richest school system in the history of the world, and yet you are turning out the stupidest bipedal cratures who ever slouched across and sullied the planet. Did it ever occur to you that money might not be the problem?

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The sad and hopeless irony of education is this:  The more of the real thing a student gets, the less is is able to tolerate the modern convention.

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“Rabbi M— is the True Messiah!”
With the juice of a beefsteak dripping from his mouth four times a week at dinner? My poor deluded friend, I think not!

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"Everything on earth was put here for man's use."
Shamelessly unbridled egotism never expressed itself so succinctly.

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An old, decrepit person who shuffles into a bank in order to do his banking is rather like a patient in the last stage of a terminal illness making an appointment with his doctor for a checkup.
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Eight o’clock in the morning. A young man starts the work day well-dressed, well-scrubbed, and with a snap to his step; no doubt about it, he’s bright-eyed and bushy-tailed.

People who have lived long enough to retire watch him go his way with feeble smiles.

*

Why is there always something mentally or emotionally wrong with people who never drink coffee, wouldn’t touch liquor, and never had a cigarette?  This would make an interesting study for psychologists.

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The astronomer: “In about five billion years the sun will begin expanding into a red giant star, destroying ever living thing on earth.”

With contemptuous laughter: “Five billion years!  I don’t think we have to worry about that quite yet!”

And yet a hundred times that amount of time has passed—and here we are. 

*

“She loves to be spoiled.”

The clear-thinking man who hears or learns this about a woman will always be inclined to run in the opposite direction, since he understands the difficulties in life and seeks a helpmeet, not another liability.

And yet a hundred times that amount of time has passed—and here we are. 

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The best consolation for misery is a loaded gun.

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The same millions who will hysterically mourn the untimely death of a beautiful young Princess who lived a life of fabulous wealth and privilege will routinely turn their heads away from a plain-faced woman who scrubs floors or toilet bowls in order to keep a roof over her head and feed her children. So much for the quality of the sympathy of the masses.

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The Disciple to the Great Sage, after hearing his dicta:  “Excuse me, Reverend Sir, but I am not sure what some of those things mean."

The Great Sage, confidentially sotto voce, his eyes twinkling, his lips upturned in a naughty smile, “That makes two of us.”

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God must have been a very insecure fellow because he ran off just when we began to insist on understanding everything about him.

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Proudly:  “I work eighty hours a week!” 
And you have time to read—when?  Dolt!

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The man of letters who comes from an unlettered family must find his roots elsewhere.  Thus the unbridgeable divide.

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As a general rule, no one has less capacity for art than he who wants to be an artist.

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For the sake of his posterity, it is important for a poor man to find an attractive mate, for if he cannot give his children the ease of a livable inheritance it is doubly incumbent on him to ensure that they will at least have the benefit of good looks.  To deny them both these things amounts to a criminal neglect. How many criminals there are!

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Artists are never made by training, but only by genius; and intelligence is always more a matter of Nature than of formal education. This is why 99% of students entering “art schools” are never heard from, and millions of dolts are walking about with college degrees.

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In celebration and commemoration of the Oscars, one ought to keep in mind that morons have no interest in authors but are always fascinated by “movie stars.”

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The bestowal of old age “benefits” is how the State rewards you at the helplessly decrepit end of your life for having agreed to waste the best and most vigorous years in the prosecution of nonsense.

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"She cried and cried, and wrung her hands, and was miserable for weeks after she she learned that her poor brother struggled for his life before he was murdered.”

“And when she finally regained her composure, did she continue to eat meat?"

“What! What does that have to do with anything!”

*

On one occasion: “He became very religious when he learned he was about to die.”

On another, very different occasion: “You should have seen how she struggled to grab the rope they threw her when she fell overboard!”

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You have to be a legend in your own mind before you can be one in anyone else’s.

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People who are loners by nature have either a great deal to be ashamed of or—have the knack of discovering it in others.

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“My book sold 5,000 copies!” Congratulations: You can buy your food and pay your rent and utilities—in short, stay alive—for the next three months.

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Ultimately an “expanding economy” is always apyramid scheme that must sooner or later collapse.

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“She retired at 62, but she lived till 82.”

“Twenty years! That’s almost a lifetime. What did she do for all those years?”

“Why, nothing. She was retired!”

“But she must have done something all day.”

“Oh, you know, the usual: she did her shopping, cleaned her apartment, watched television.”

One itches to say: “Oh, I see: She was a moron!”

*

So long as Americans are afraid of words and ideas, they will continue to get what they say they are sick and tired of: mealy-mouthed, namby-pamby politicians.

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It's amazing how many politicians who make a show of sympathy with blacks and poor people live in affluent lily-white neighborhoods and would no more send their children to a public school than they would throw them over a cliff. And Americans--dopes that they are--smilingly accept it all, naively take them at their word, and kowtow and scrape to them whenever they appear in public. Americans have gotten exactly the government they deserve. (This is something you won't find written in a book published Random House or Houghton Mifflin.)

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“I love this writer!”

You are that writer.

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Of a famous baseball player who has been “cryogenically” preserved (i.e., frozen rock-solid like a rump steak in a freezer): “He will be preserved till such time as medical science can treat the disease of which he died and there will be a chance of resurrecting him.”

Bravo! Now we can start bringing back sports morons we had reason to hope we were finally rid of!

*

“It was love at first sight.”

Give it a few years.

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If in there weren't laws in New York City about how many animals can be kept in an apartment, half the women there over the age of 50, who never married and remained blithely celibate, would be living with a hundred cats.

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From a documentary ....

“70% of the people here live in poverty ... under a dollar a day ... hunger, vitamin deficiencies .... children with bloated bellies ...” Etc. etc. etc.

But all of this only begs the question (which of course the dolts who make such documentaries never ask): Why do people who can barely feed themselves continue having children? To do is tantamount to complaining that one cannot breathe and yet purposefully depriving oneself of oxygen; in fact, it is a hundred times worse than this, since it amounts to inflicting suffering on the innocent—on those who never agreed to undergo the torment, and who, if they had been given a choice, certainly would have declined it.

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How tedious and frustrating is the company of men without a purpose! They may be kindly and well-intentioned, but because their spirits are without motivation and their minds, often, dull, they exist only to be entertained from without—and this accounts for their restlessness, the quickness with which they find shortcomings in any environment in which they happen to be, and which of course can never exist solely for their benefit. This is also why so many of them come to appreciate the most humdrum hours of their lives only after they have gone through some life-threatening illness or harrowing ordeal: that alone has put anxiety-free boredom in some perspective for them: only then can they sit quietly, by themselves, for long periods, and not too much lament the fact that they are not more than painlessly alive. On the other hand, the man with a purpose sees life as a very limited resource that he must exploit to its uttermost if he is not to be cheated. Thus, every hour, every minute, is valuable to him only insofar as it is his own and without interruption. The uneventfulness of his time is only seeming—in fact, the opposite of what it appears to be. There is in his case even a kind of strange inverse ratio by which his hours never go faster and more excitingly than when he seems to be wallowing in a static leisure, and are never heavier, more oppressive, and destructive than when he is—as the rest of the world terms it—“busy” or otherwise socially engaged. To those who cannot conceive of fulfillment in anything but the most gross and obvious terms, such a man is something of a mystery and even a subject for disdainful wonder, about whom will be moronically asked, “But doesn't he want to do anything? Doesn't he want to go anywhere? Doesn't he want to see anyone?”

*

Just when you think the word “savage” is out of date, and out of date precisely because humanity has evolved to the point where no modern person could be without at least some smallest particle of refinement, you hear—rap music; and realize that the degradation of brutality is alive and well.

*

One day the United States will do away with Capital Punishment: and one day people will regard cold blooded murder in the same way they now look upon a burglary. (One always gets the society one deserves.)

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“She was so beautiful when she was young! She was so vibrant, the toast of the town! But then she gained weight, and then she got fat, and then she started getting sick, and at the end!--well, at the end you wouldn't have even recognized her, she was just so old and frail, nothing but the poor pathetic ghost of herself!"

“Ah, you mean she lived a full life!”

*

Listening to old married couples talk about how they managed to remain together for forty or fifty years always reminds one of old soldiers recounting how they stormed and overcame an enemy position against great odds:—there is that same sense of having gone through hell, and survived."

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The only man who deserves to be wealthy is the one who desires to be so in order that he might work the harder.

*

Hairiness on a human being is hideous because it represent a devolution of the species. This is not to say that wherever it occurs there is an instance of a less-evolved man or woman; but rather that it represents such a thing—and this makes a negative impression on the genius of the species, which is inherent in every individual, and which strives to evolve into a higher form. Hairy women are, of course, downright repulsive, as are men with very hairy bodies. Even men with too-full or long beards, no matter how renowned they may be for their mental or spiritual qualities, have about them the air of a billy goat or buffalo. As for those religious sects that encourage men to grow beards as a sign of their masculinity (so that by middle age they look as though a bale of wool depends from their cheeks), they in this show not only their obsolescence but also the really crude spiritual state that gave rise to them. Of course there are a small percentage of people who are indifferent to or even (heaven help us all) attracted to hairiness, but these people are mentally unbalanced and cannot be taken seriously.

*

Good art requires a great deal of time, that is to say, what the rest of the world regards as slacking. Thus the artist must be prepared to add to the list of humiliations he must endure the added one of criticisms from morons who have made a fetish of “hard work,” that is to say, of exhausting themselves in the pursuit of things that could just as well be by idiots or even by (literally) monkeys.

*

In music, melody is everything. With it, almost any arrangement is listenable, or at least interesting; without it, and the most studied and lavish accompaniments leave one unsatisfied or disgusted.

*

It is hard to be recognized as a good musician or singer or actor because, at any one time, there are so many of them; it is hard to be recognized as a good writer because, at any one time, there are so few of them. But by this one ought to understand that good writing is not necessarily a matter of competent grammar or orthography, or even, especially, of thoughtfulness and depth of knowledge in a given subject. A writer fully conversant with a given subject may write about it a book composed of ten thousand flawless sentences—and yet for all that have written a very indifferent book. (This is the sort of thing one meets up with at least ten times a season in books written by well-known journalists.) There is something that the good writer has that the bad or indifferent one has not, some spark (for want of a better word) that breathes life or excitement into his words. This goes to the very heart of who the writer is.

*

Combine in one person arrogance, maverickism, literary breeding, and a maturity able to look back with cold analysis on a difficult, tumultuous, or otherwise eccentric past: and there you have someone whose writings are worth reading.

*

“Writing courses” can always and only be counted on for two things: robbing students, and producing journalists.

*

The “right word” is the one that as precisely as possible denotes the emotion or thought to be imparted. Insofar as it is this, it should arise naturally, of itself, and flow with unconscious precision onto the page. Sometimes this does not happen and one has to search for it, but be assured that when the search becomes laborious to the point of frustration or exhaustion, then you are probably trying to convey something you either don’t believe or don’t feel; the heart of the difficulty being insincerity. In that case the whole thing—the whole sentence or paragraph or page—should be dispensed with; perhaps even the whole work!

*

There is a lot to be said for the necessity of discipline in art. You must apply yourself pretty consistently to get worthwhile results. In writing, for instance, it does no good to dash off a paragraph or a page a day and think that one has accomplished anything; one has not; one has only, as it were, given a turn to the ignition and tested the viability of the engine, without even having allowed it to run, much less actually taken the vehicle onto the road and done any traveling. It should also be said that this discipline is most effective when followed in youth; which of course is just the time when it is least likely to be followed on account of the multitude of distractions at that time of life. Nevertheless, several years of putting one’s nose to the artistic grindstone in one’s late adolescence or in one’s twenties sets down a kind of indelible pattern or path by which one may in latter life follow to good effect; whereas without this paradigm, the most earnest creative attempts in later life wind up as so many vain thrashings about.

*

Anyone who thinks that mankind did not evolve from apes needs to give IQ tests to corporate executives.

*

Cruelty to animals is on par with cruelty to children because in both instances the victims are innocent and have not deserved, and cannot fathom the reason for, their suffering. Insofar as the crimes are equally heinous, the penalty for them ought to be correspondingly severe. But that is never the case. The man who kills a child will get the death penalty or life in prison; the man who kills and tortures dozens or hundreds of animals will get only a few years—if even that. But if mankind, so smugly satisfied with this gross inequality of “law,” thinks that Nature in some way agrees with it or countenances it, they are mistaken. For there is a greater Justice than man’s in the universe. It is karmic in nature, and timeless; it stretches inexorably into every country, great and small; into every household, however mighty or anonymous; into every life, no matter how apparently well-lead. It is the answer to the question, “Why do bad things happen to good people?” No one who considers how long, how often, and how egregiously mankind has mistreated the rest of animal creation can seriously think he does not deserve the worst of the myriad ills that daily befall him. If anything, the wonder is that they do not befall him more frequently than they do.

*

Whenever some dolt has given your book a bad review, you can always take consolation in the fact that countless thousands of books that were extraordinarily well-reviewed in their time have been entirely forgotten, while a good number of those that were ignored or obscure at the time of publication somehow eventually rose from the dead—the subtle quality of their longevity not recognized among their more highly-touted but essentially ephemeral brethren. Moreover, a lot of “great” writers have written duds, and obscure ones have produced unsung or obscure masterpieces. And the less similar your book is to those that have gone before it, the more likely it is to meet up with a negative response, it being a matter of human nature to shun the offbeat or even to feel a kind of resentment against anything that challenges one’s confidence in one’s tastes. And God forbid you should have any sense of humor ... !

*

“Mass transit” is a polite term to describe getting from one place to another in the obnoxious company of the vulgar. This is why those politicians who talk most about its virtues never take it; and why those few who make a point of doing so are especially shrewd in ensuring their re-election by an exquisite—if, for them, disgusting—method of pandering.

*

“Your books are outrageous, and by that I mean outrageously bad. Your prose is too involved–the sentences are too long. You are wordy and tedious. Your dicta, which you are apparently incapable of refraining from, are as impracticable and groundless as they are glibly neat; heaven only knows where you dredged them up from. Half the time you are snide and the other half cynical. The best that can be said for your best prose is that it’s sappy. As for your morality, it doesn’t exist. Your heros are lazy bums and your heroines are ambitious harlots; a fine society you’d turn us into! Your political views are naive. So are your notions of religion. And that book you wrote that was supposed to be so funny wasn’t funny at all. Humor! Is that what you call it? A strange kind of humor you’ve got! It didn’t make me laugh at all—not once. It only made me sneer, and once it made me spit. Struggling to get through it was worse than walking in knee-high mud in heavy boots. I was disgusted with it right through to the last page. I can’t think of anything good to say about your books. A waste of your time in having written them and a greater waste of a reader’s time in reading them; and I ought to know because I’ve read them all, every last page and every word of them. I’m an expert in just how rotten you are. Well? What’ve you got to say for yourself!”

“ ...”

*

Just how degraded, corrupt, and ready for destruction some countries of the West have become may be seen in the number of their citizens who believe in conspiracy theories that attribute attacks against their countries not to foreign enemies (though these have avowed their intentions and taken responsibility for the acts) but to their own leaders, though they are themselves target of the foreign hostility. This is analogous to the mental illness of self-loathing, which, if allowed to fester—if not treated or restrained—winds up driving the individual to suicide.

*

“The things you say! Don’t you understand that they’re offensive to some people! How do you expect any publisher to print the things you write!”

“How many times must I tell you that I am not writing for Random House?”

*

A best-selling author in an interview: “My first novel was about finding true love. My second novel was about losing true love. My new novel is about choosing true love.”

Heaven help us all.

* * *

October 7, 2007 ...

There will be no more online entries to MAXIMS & COUNSELS because I will soon be going over the entries already accumulated, and revising and rearranging them for publication in the winter of 2007/2008. The entries here--online--represent only about a quarter of those that will appear in the final volume.

Once the volume has been published, this site will continue as the repository for new entries for a complementary volume, MAXIMS & COUNSELS, SECOND SERIES. But these new entries will be very slow in coming; so much so that I can't conceive of when, or even if, they will ever amount to enough to justify publication. In part this is because I have exhausted most of what I wanted to say in an epigrammatic format, and in part because my energies must now be directed entirely toward completing a collection of short fiction entitled NEW YORK STORIES. One of these stories, "Success," has for several months now been available on Amazon.com.

Note to the reader:

I hope to add to this site, as I've indicated, as "time and inspiration permit'; which more precisely means as I find time to devote to it from other projects I am working on. I ask that you excuse, at least somewhat, any roughness in phrasing or lapses of good diction or grammar, which I hope to correct in editing the compilation before publication. Good writing is after all a process of refinement. Thus, the entries here may not be the same as those which appear in the printed volume, and some my be ultimately omitted, while others which are not here may be included.

Some readers of this web site will notice that I have changed the title, and the cover, of the book. I did this with initial misgiving, but now with a kind of resigned acceptance and satisfaction. The previous title and cover art were intentionally provocative and on that account would have aroused more interest, if only of a prurient kind, but the new, more refined title and image of the book seemed to me more in keeping with its contents and, quite frankly, with the kind of audience I hope to attract; and there is only one thing that would please me more than the quantity of readers: their quality.

Other books by Renald Iacovelli:

LILY SNOW
THE ADVENTURES OF CORKER LARUE
BREAKING A LEG
THE POLITY OF BEASTS (see the Midwest Book Review HERE)