If there's reason for hope, it lies in man's occasional binges of cooperation. To save our planet, we'll need that kind of heroic effort, in which all types of people join forces for the common good

You have to respect people's suffering. To deny that the world is unfair and painful for most of the people living in it would be false and judgmental.

I find that the creative side of my brain and the archival side of my brain don't work well together. When I've done my best work, I've been in a trance-like state.

The only rule was that the stuff had to be funny and pretty short. To me, the quintessential Army Man joke was one of John Swartzwelder's: 'They can kill the Kennedys. Why can't they make a cup of coffee that tastes good?' It's a horrifying idea juxtaposed with something really banal-and yet there's a kind of logic to it. It's illuminating because it's kind of how Americans see things: Life's a big jumble, but somehow it leads to something I can consume. I love that.

I love that Voltaire was so willing to shock his readers with arbitrary cruelty. And I can completely relate to it.

Instead of three networks you have three hundred or three thousand. Audiences are inundated with programming, and that sometimes gives them a sense of petulant entitlement.

When people have no interest in a subject, it's very hard to get them to laugh about it. If I had to write ten jokes about potholders, I don't think I could do it. But I could write ten jokes about Catholicism in the next twenty minutes.