The central point of this final chapter is that - follow my logic carefully here - unless you die, you will continue to get older. (It's insights like this that separate the professional book author from the person with a real job.)

There was nowhere to sit except the bunk, which was covered with rotting food, and a wooden stool, upon which sat a large fur-covered lump—an old cheese, perhaps, or a dead cat.

I still think of myself as a newspaper guy and you live by deadlines in the newspaper world, so, they don't really give you any excuses. At the paper they never say, "Well, we just won't have Tuesday's paper come out, we'll just bring Tuesday's paper out on Wednesday, so go ahead, take all the time you need." They come out with that paper regardless.

Japan has a low crime rate, unless you count the fact that approximately every fifteen minutes the entire Cabinet gets indicted for taking bribes.

The problem was that Panama technically belonged to Colombia, which refused to sign a treaty leasing it to the United States. So Roosevelt sent a gunboat filled with marines down to Panama, just on the off chance that a revolution might suddenly break out, and darned if one didn't, two days later. Not only that, but the leaders of the new nation of Panama-talk about lucky breaks!-were absolutely thrilled to have the United States build a canal there. 'Really, it's our pleasure,' they told the marines, adding, 'Don't shoot.'

See, when the government spends money, it creates jobs; whereas when the money is left in the hands of taxpayers, God only knows what they do with it. Bake it into pies, probably. Anything to avoid creating jobs.

Each year, millions of skiers come to Colorado to experience its superb emergency medical facilities.