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.

Nonprofit status is what created the Bible Belt. The tax code brought religion back to this country.

God, or what have you, will not be found at the far end of a syllogism, no matter how brilliantly phrased or conceived.

Commercialism is doing well that which should not be done at all.

Traitors who prevail are patriots; usurpers who succeed are divine emperors.

When Ronald Reagan's career in show business came to an end, he was hired to impersonate, first, a California governor and then an American president who would reduce taxes for his employers, the Southern and Western New Rich, much of whose money came from the defence industries. There is nothing unusual about this arrangement. All recent presidents have had their price-tags.

I don't want anything. I don't want a job. I don't want to be respectable. I don't want prizes. I turned down the National Institute of Arts and Letters when I was elected to it in 1976 on the grounds that I already belonged to the Diners Club.