I like the distance that Europe gives me. Also if I stayed in America I'd be a full-time politician and have no time for writing, which is why I went to Europe to live in 1961.

Poor John Simon - what a nightmare, to wake up in the morning and realize that you are John Simon.

Actually, there is no such thing as a homosexual person, any more than there is such a thing as a heterosexual person. The words are adjectives describing sexual acts, not people. The sexual acts are entirely normal; if they were not, no one would perform them.

One is sorry one could not have taken both branches of the road. But we were not allotted multiple selves.

I don't seem to be cynical to myself but how what I say goes down with others is their problem. I'm realistic.

Big oil, big steel, big agriculture avoid the open marketplace. Big corporations fix prices among themselves and thus drive out of business the small entrepreneur. Also, in their conglomerate form, the huge corporations have begun to challenge the very legitimacy of the state.

Obviously I'm in favor of protecting the rights of everybody: gay, black, women, what have you, American Indians.