Maybe it takes forty years of your life to understand how the world seems to work.

If I basically view criticism as sort of an interesting form of writing about oneself, an interesting form of autobiography, then I don't feel any pressure to have any kind of authoritative, universal voice. That kind of thing has never interested me.

Let's say Twitter existed during the Civil War. We would have a better understanding of people in the Confederacy who were against slavery, people in the North who actually felt we should just let the South be the South. Because the way it is now, it seems like we have this portrait where everybody in Georgia hated Yankees and everybody in the North was enlightened. That wouldn't seem as clear cut as it does now.

If Donald Trump loses badly, it could mean the end of the GOP as one of the two significant parties.

A homeless man once told me that dancing to rap music is the cultural equivalent of masturbating, and I'd sort of fell the same way about playing John Madden Football immediately after filing my income tax: It's fun, but - somehow - vaguely pathetic.

[On political correctness:] Any intended message mattered less than the received message, and every received message could be interpreted in whatever way the receiver wanted.

That's like comparing apples with hermaphroditic ground sloths.