I don't consider myself a cynic. I think of myself as a skeptic and a realist. But I understand the word "cynic" has more than one meaning, and I see how I could be seen as cynical. "George, you're cynical." Well, you know, they say if you scratch a cynic you find a disappointed idealist. And perhaps the flame still flickers a little, you know?

I make fun of people who are religious, because they're fundamentally weak.

Everything that you know about yourself comes from thinking back, and I think I saw religion as the first big betrayal of me.

Anger is a handy term and words are tricky, as we know. What one man perceives as anger, another person - in my case the deliverer of material - is, "Don't you see it, don't you see how badly you're doing?" It's like shaking a child - which you're not supposed to do.

I recently went to a new doctor and noticed he was located in something called the Professional Building. I felt better right away.

I don't consider myself a cynic. I think of myself as a skeptic and a realist. But I understand the word "cynic" has more than one meaning, and I see how I could be seen as cynical. "George, you're cynical." Well, you know, they say if you scratch a cynic you find a disappointed idealist. And perhaps the flame still flickers a little, you know?

Primitive societies, or social groupings, had shamans, and some of them even more recent in time. Shamans were tricksters. There was a tradition of the trickster, and the trickster was a clown, a humorous fellow. His task was to trick the gods, to humor the gods into laughing, so that there was access to the divine - because laughter is a moment when we are completely ourselves.