Before we had airplanes and astronauts, we really thought that there was an actual place beyond the clouds, somewhere over the rainbow. There was an actual place, and we could go above the clouds and find it.there.

If you were a tree, what kind would you be?

Homogeneity is much to be admired - in milk, for instance - but not for parties.

Although I myself don't go to church or synagogue, I do, whether it's superstition or whatever, pray every time I get on a plane. I just automatically do it. I say the same thing every time.

For a man who likes to talk, Fidel Castro does very few interviews.

I can get a better grasp of what is going on in the world from one good Washington dinner party than from all the background information NBC piles on my desk.

I happen to disagree with the well-entrenched theory that the art of conversation is merely the art of being a good listener. Such advice invites people to be cynical with one another and full of fake; when a conversation becomes a monologue, poked along with tiny cattle-prod questions, it isn't a conversation any more.