It is astonishing to think that millions of people in my time—now, too, I suppose—actually thought that at a given moment in history two human beings had evolved to a higher state than that of all the gods that ever were or ever will be. This is titanism, as the Greeks would say. This is madness.

Astronauts: rotarians in outer space.

Nothing human is finally calculable; even to ourselves we are strange.

There are two things you never turn down: sex and appearing on television.

The Gores, I think, are a bit brighter than the Bushes, historically speaking.

I said, well, it's a very primitive country, the United States, and it's full of superstitions, which come out of a very fundamental religious bias, which is primitive Christianity.

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