To say that a humorist exaggerates to get big laughs, I don't see how that's big news.

Up close the city constitutes an oppressive series of staircases, but from a distance it inspires fantasies of wealth and power so profound that even our communists are temporarily rendered speechless.

I tend to show everything I do to my family, to check they won't be offended.

... [I] recall thinking that the computer would never advance much further than this. Call me naïve, but I seemed to have underestimated the universal desire to sit in a hard plastic chair and stare at a screen until your eyes cross.

Hugh returned from his trip, and days later I still sounded like a Red Chinese asking questions about the democratic hinterlands. "And you actually saw people smoking in restaurants? Really! And offices, too? Oh, tell me again about the ashtrays in the hospital waiting room, and don't leave anything out."

What I really hated, of course, was my mind. There must have been an off switch somewhere, but I was damned if I could find it.

I've often lost faith in myself, I've never lost it in my family.