There's tremendous pressure, if you're in that [goverment] system, to be involved and be interested and to care about it. There's no room to say, "This is stupid."

The books all say that barracuda rarely eat people, but very few barracuda can read.

One I'm deeply into is Doris Kearns Goodwin's "Team of Rivals." I was the only person in the US who hadn't read it.

The major parties could conduct live human sacrifices on their podiums during prime time, and I doubt that anybody would notice.

Those who can't laugh at themselves leave the job to others.

We believe that electricity exists, because the electric company keeps sending us bills for it, but we cannot figure out how it travels inside wires.

Never under any circumstances take a sleeping pill and a laxative on the same night.