It was at a vividly bad time in Norman Mailer's life that I met him, and a sort of water-treading time in mine. He had stabbed his wife, and I was a copy boy at Time magazine.

I'm not all that enthralled by show business, and I'm not that much of a highbrow.

A grown man, weeping, is a tough thing to see.

The greatest benefit of depression is the fact that when I have talked about it, every so often someone comes up and says, you saved my dad's life.

I am always shocked that there are still a handful of defenders of the dubious practice of abstinence, surely the worst idea since chocolate-covered ants.

Nobody is going to try to confiscate guns, although some Web sites know better: President Obama, they are certain, wants to.

The very phrase 'Oscar night' used to accelerate my pulse. For one thing - dating myself - it meant Bob Hope. He always had good, strong jokes, that faultless delivery, and always a new joke about his own films' failure - once again - to be honored.