Before I was born [my father] wanted me to go specifically to Yale, which he thought would help. It was easy for him to think I could be president: he didn't have to worry about being president himself, being ineligible because he wasn't born in the United States.

Avoid restaurants with names that are improbable descriptions, such as the Purple Goose, the Blue Kangaroo or the Quilted Orangutan.

Once, in Lisbon, I tried my best to work the phone book in a way that would assuage a longing [Alice and I] had for certain Chinese dishes . . . .

There's always a source for humor [in politics]. If it's inappropriate to write about, if there's nothing funny about it, then it's not funny. So it sort of selects itself. It has to. And plus, often something that wouldn't be funny at the time is okay to make jokes about later.

I do remember in high school I wanted to be a disc jockey.

Following the Rumanian tradition, garlic is used in excess to keep the vampires away... Following the Jewish tradition, a dispenser of schmaltz (liquid chicken fat) is kept on the table to give the vampires heartburn if they get through the garlic defense.

Everybody is who he was in high school.