This is sad. One of those things where, in the movies, she would have held on until it was announced that he had won the election. Then she would just slip quietly away while everybody around her was cheering at the television. But not in the real world. She dies the day before the election. Never knowing if he makes it or not.

Of course the cynic in me now won't be surprised if get some additional sympathy votes. That makes me pretty cynical doesn't it.

I was in my mother's belly as she sat in the waiting room of the abortionist's office. Dr. Sunshine was his code name. I was fifty feet from the drainpipe, and she saw a painting on the wall that reminded her of her mother, who had recently died. She took that as a sign to have the baby. That's what I call luck.

My mother had great executive-secretarial jobs in the advertising business and raised two boys during the Second World War. She used to say, I make a man's salary. That's heroism.

I'm sure Hitler was great with his family.

I used to collect the most colorful curses I heard and write them down. I actually carried in my wallet things like "kraut cunt" and "burly loudmouth cocksucker" and "longhair fucking music prick," which was a thing Mikey Flynn yelled at a Juilliard student that he was kicking in the head.

I don't like authority and regulation, and I do my best to disrespect it, but I do that for myself. It's self-expression only.

If it's morally wrong to kill anyone, then it's morally wrong to kill anyone. Period.

It's amazing to me that literacy isn't considered a right.

I was arrested for possession and cultivation of marijuana in the early '70s, and it was thrown out. The judge asked me how I felt about it, and I said, "I understand the law, and I want you to know I'll pay the fine, but I cannot guarantee I will not break this law again." He really chewed me out for that.

Censorship that comes from the outside assumes about people an inability to make reasoned choices.

The first thing they teach kids is that there's a God -- an invisible man in the sky who is watching what they do and who is displeased with some of it. There's no mystery why they start that with kids, because if you can get someone to believe that, you can add on anything you want.

I stopped voting when I stopped taking drugs. I believe both of those acts are closely related to delusional behavior.

There's no morality in business. It doesn't have a conscience. It has only the cash register. They'll sell you crappy things that you don't need, that don't work, that they won't stand behind. It's a glorified legal form of criminal behavior.

If everybody knew the truth about everybody else's thoughts, there would be way more murders.

There's nothing wrong with high taxes on high income.

If there's ever a golden age of mankind, it will not include men over two hundred pounds beating children who are less than one hundred pounds, and it will not include the deliberate killing of people in a formal setting.

I did something in a previous life that must have been spectacularly good, because I'm getting paid in this life just magnificently, more than one would dare imagine or hope for.

So I'm sure most of you know Heath Ledger died Tuesday. I have been a fan since A Knight’s Tale. Unlike much of the net, I never doubted he would make a fantastic Joker. I have never seen him give a poor, or even ok performance. He always did excellent work as an actor. He always appeared to be a great well grounded guy.

It's surprising me that I’m compelled to write about it here. I always expected to see great movies from him for some time to come. I pains me a little, that we never will.