"Free speech is the whole thing, the whole ball game.  Free speech is life itself."
—Salman Rushdie

There's only one rule:

• there are no rules (if you're stretching your imagination) —David Goss, The Science of Living Better Forever

• step on a crack , break your mother's back (if you're playing a sidewalk game)

• have the teapot in front of you at all times (if you're crocheting tea cosies) —Loani Prior, Really Wild Tea Cosies

• no deep-fried foods (if you're throwing a party and watching your cholesterol) —Mary Mihaly, The Complete Guide to Lowering Your Cholesterol

• there's no being tired (if you're touring Paris) —Penelope Rowlands, Paris Was Ours

• say "Thank you" (if you're receiving a compliment) —Thriving in the Workplace All-in-One For Dummies

• the teddy bear stays in the house (if you're a dog in training) —Heavenly Humor for the Dog Lover's Soul

• never, ever let a boy touch you there unless he's your husband —Gillian Flynn, Dark Places

• wear whatever is most comfortable (if you're hiking with a dog) —Dan Nelson, Best Hikes with Dogs Western Washington

• never miss paying your round (if you're drinking with friends) —Jack Kahane, Memoirs of a Booklegger

• there must be at least one [item] on the list that is impossible (if you're setting goals) —David Taylor, The Naked Millionaire

• anything goes, as long as you keep at least two tires on the pavement (if you're driving an automobile) —Glenn Beck, The Overton Window

• conquer at any price (if you're on the battlefield) —Luis M. Rocha, The Holy Bullet

• yes means yes and no means no (in the sexual marketplace) —Glenn T. Stanton, Secure Daughters, Confident Sons

• never get involved with a student (if you're a good teacher) —Hank Brooks, The Inlet

• if you represent the wife, get as much as possible; if you represent the husband, give away as little as possible (in divorce settlement) —Howard K. Irving, Children Come First

• form, structure and content should not be separate (in synaesthetic cinema) —Simon Rycroft, Swinging City

• don't eat from the tree of knowledge of good and evil (if you're in the Garden of Eden)

• you need one equation for every unknown (in algebra) —Norman S. Pratt, Pearls for the Moment

• don't hit the ducks (in a joke about a golf course in heaven) —Stephen Motway, Jokes, Quotes, and Other Assorted Things

• the fewer attachments and aversions you have to the goal, the quicker it will manifest (if you're a non-dualistic self-inquirer) —Aleksander Kupisz, Holistic Creation and Focus Zone Chi Gong

• no touching of the net (if you're a volley ball player) —Joseph A Bulko, Wall of Illusion, Book 3

• you clean up after yourself down there (if you're in the kitchen) —Jennifer Taylor Wojcik, From Day One

• learn to listen (if you're training to be a good communicator) —John Mason, Believe You Can

"Anything's possible after five years in Europe."
—José Donoso, The Obscene Bird of Night

"How could one decide to become part of a world whose loftiest truths are determined by a dish of marinated eels?"
—José Donoso, The Obscene Bird of Night

"When you arrive at the structure, begin examining the structure from the top."
—Electrical Transmission in a New Age (2002)

Courtesy of literary rapscallion Jonathan Caws-Elwitt:

If hiding in plain sight is a time-honored effective strategy, hiding in plain sight in bright colors can only be that much more effective.

Ask any person to tell you what missing teeth are — "real," everyday missing teeth, not the abstract extractions of theoretical dentistry — and he will likely elaborate upon abscessed absences, silver-filled nonentities, cavitied nothingnesses, fairy chattel.  How can it be that a baby's toothless smile is contagious?  Can a toothless smiler be preoccupied?

[Apologies to philosopher Roberto Casati.]

Dedicated to Gary Barwin.

"Still it is undeniable that behind all science and mysticism, behind all the approaches of West and East, there is but one area of reality and realization: the human psyche. Whatever preternatural realities might make themselves known to us, they must do so by way of the psyche or else go unnoticed." —Stephan A. Hoeller, "Wise Men from the East"

"Shouldn't we be speaking of something more important than life and death?"
—Gustav Meyrink, The Angel of the West Window

"A poet's work . . . to name the unnameable, to point at frauds, to take sides, start arguments, shape the world and stop it from going to sleep."
—Salman Rushdie

"Books choose their authors; the act of creation is not entirely a rational and conscious one."
—Salman Rushdie

"The poetic art is no more and no less than the repayment of old debts to life and to the mystery of life."
—Vítězslav Nezval, in his foreword to Valerie and Her Week of Wonders

"The world we live in is a world of effects; the realm of true causes is hidden.  If we should ever discover it we would be able to perform magic."
—Gustav Meyrink, The Green Face

"If one man has an idea, that just means that many others will have the same idea at the same time.  Anyone who doesn't see that doesn't know what an idea is.  Thoughts are contagious, even if they are not expressed; perhaps most contagious when they are not expressed."
—Gustav Meyrink, The Green Face

"If I remember correctly writers usually find some excuse for their books, although why one should excuse oneself for having such a quiet and peaceful occupation I really don't know.  Military people never seem to apologize for killing each other yet novelists feel ashamed for writing some nice inert paper book that is not certain to be ready by anybody."
—Leonora Carrington, The Hearing Trumpet

"Every new invention, every new idea to appear in the world puts on a grotesque face as it develops."
—Gustav Meyrink, The Green Face

"Schoolmasters ... are like animal tamers; the latter think it is important for lions to jump through hoops, the former spend all their time getting children to remember that the late lamented Hannibal lost his left eye in the Pontine swamps; the one turns the king of the desert into a circus clown, the other a divine flower into a bunch of parsley."
—Gustav Meyrink, The White Dominican

"Nowadays everyone thinks they can organize; that shows how wrong it must be.  What is right is always the opposite of what the herd does."
—Gustav Meyrink, The Green Face

"Our teachers are like sorcerer's apprentices, who spend all their time deforming the mind, until the heart dies of thirst.  When they have accomplished that, they declare their students ready to go out into the world."
—Gustav Meyrink, The White Dominican

"All things are possible, and the longer they are in coming, the more probable they are."
—Gustav Meyrink, The Green Face