It ended suddenly for Brenda, more slowly for me. My runs began getting shorter and less pleasurable. I'd feel bad after only one day, or only a few hours, instead of four or five days. And I began to want to stop. One of the proudest moments of my life was at a rock-'n'-roll theater in New Jersey. A guy actually put some coke under my nose and I was able to say, "No, thanks," and turn my head away.

I never joined the Boy Scouts. I don't trust any organization that has a handbook.

I think it would be interesting if old people got anti-Alzheimer's disease where they slowly began to recover other people's lost memories.

I've never seen a homeless guy with a bottle of Gatorade.

The straightest line between a straight distance is two points.

I think there's a little more attention to human needs than to property rights. But I don't think much of political activism. It's so shortsighted. Most people are interested in their own personal comfort. I've said that about environmentalists. I think they care about bike paths and places to park their Volvos, not the planet as an abstraction.

If it's true that our species is alone in the universe, then I'd have to say the universe aimed rather low and settled for very little.