Today's public figures can no longer write their own speeches or books, and there is some evidence that they can't read them either.

At any given moment, public opinion is a chaos of superstition, misinformation, and prejudice.

Laughing at someone else is an excellent way of learning how to laugh at oneself; and questioning what seem to be the absurd beliefs of another group is a good way of recognizing the potential absurdity of many of one's own cherished beliefs.

People like to re-invent you, according to cliché. There are a lot of stores about me that really apply only to Capote or Mailer or somebody else. Everything is a mish mash.

The only absolute attainment is absolute abandonment.

Once people get hung up on theology, they've lost sanity forever.

Altruism is a brief phase through which some adolescents must pass. It is rather like acne. Happily, as with acne, only a few are permanently scarred.