This separation was absolute in our original Republic. But the sky-godders do not give up easily. In the 1950s they actually got the phrase In God We Trust onto the currency, in direct violation of the First Amendment.

When anyone says to me, 'Can you keep a secret?' I say, 'Why should I, if you can't?'

True wisdom is to know the extent of what you don't know quite as well as you know what you do know.

I have always regarded as a stroke of good fortune that I was not born or brought up in a small American town; they may be the backbone of the nation, but they are also the backbone of ignorance, bigotry, and boredom, all in vast quantities.

In a society like ours, politics is improvisation. To the artful dodger rather than the true believer goes the prize.

Since there is no system of public education, the great majority of my fellow citizens is frighteningly ignorant. They have no idea where Iraq is. They accept as the gospel whatever the government tells them. Good grief, any other normal country would have been against the Iraq war! But we live in an abnormal country, governed by experts in deceptive advertising.

I never reread a text until I have finished the first draft. Otherwise it's too discouraging.