The idea of a good society is something you do not need a religion and eternal punishment to buttress; you need a religion if you are terrified of death.

There is hardly an American male of my generation who has not at one time or another tried to master the victory cry of the great ape as it issued from the androgynous chest of Johnny Weissmuller, to the accompaniment of thousands of arms and legs snapping during attempts to swing from tree to tree in the backyards of the Republic.

Sex was a great no-no for Americans, so that was obviously an attraction to the writers, and since sex is a great part of most people's lives, it's a great subject.

These little books I write, such as The End of Freedom, about the post-9/11 political climate in the United States, sell in the hundreds of thousands of copies. Whereas, I hear novels on marriage are not selling. This is perhaps not the judgment of God, but it is certainly that of history.

What is in question is a kind of book reviewing which seems to be more and more popular: the loose putting down of opinions as though they were facts, and the treating of facts as though they were opinions.

You hear all this whining going on, "Where are our great writers?" The thing I might feel doleful about is: Where are the readers?

You see we adults have learned how to disguise our terrible characters but a child... well, it's like a grotesque drawing of us. They should be neither seen nor heard. And no one must make another one.