I've always had a tremendously optimistic attitude about life, and the setbacks are never really setbacks for me, because I see it as a part of the adventure. And if you don't hold onto your dreams, you're a very foolish fellow, because dreams are what life is about.

My folks were farm people from Nebraska, so I like home cooking.

After all the Puritans came to America to escape from persecution and then turned around and started persecuting other people. So I understand that conflict that we have related to play and pleasure and sexuality. And I think what has made my life worthwhile is trying to deal with some of those questions.

As Ray Bradbury - a longtime contributor to Playboy - said a long time ago, a lot of people, when they're talking about the contents of the magazine, they don't see the forest. People don't see the other part of my life because they're too fascinated with the girls.

There's always been a little bit of the crusader in me, and you need dragons to slay, without the conflict and the controversy I think that what I managed to do less, and I take a great deal of pride in the accomplishment.

I can remember in my adolescence feeling that many of the things that were hurtful and hypocritical in society were things related to sex. They included the kind of censorship laws that existed in the movies and books when I was young.

The major civilizing force in the world is not religion, it is sex.