I hate intellectual discussion. When I hear the words 'phenomenology' or 'structuralism', I reach for my buck knife.

Life without music would be an intolerable insult.

Recorded history is largely an account of the crimes and disasters committed by banal little men at the levers of imperial machines.

There is science, logic, reason; there is thought verified by experience. And then there is California.

Tofu and futons. The adepts of Orientalism seem to spend most of their lives reclining. They can't quite summon the energy to crawl up onto a chair. Even their Yogic exercises are carried out in a prone or sitting position.

In social institutions, the whole is always less than the sum of its parts. There will never be a state as good as its people, or a church worthy of its congregation, or a university equal to its faculty and students.

Too many American authors have a servile streak where their backbone should be. Where's our latest Nobel laureate? More than likely you'll find him in the Rose Garden kissing the First Lady's foot.