After the collapse of socialism, capitalism remained without a rival. This unusual situation unleashed its greedy and - above all - its suicidal power. The belief is now that everything - and everyone - is fair game.

What makes books - and with them writers - so dangerous that church and state, politburos and the mass media feel the need to oppose them?

An empty bus hurtles through the starry night Perhaps the driver is singing and happy because he sings.

Information networks straddle the world. Nothing remains concealed. But the sheer volume of information dissolves the information. We are unable to take it all in.

Whenever there has been talk of exterminating rats, others, who were not rats, have been exterminated.

I have found that words that are loaded with pathos and create a seductive euphoria are apt to promote nonsense.

Granted: I AM an inmate of a mental hospital; my keeper is watching me, he never lets me out of his sight; there's a peep-hole in the door, and my keeper's eye is the shade of brown that can never see through a blue-eyed type like me.