After my stroke I put down much of the luggage of my life. I didn't have to prove anything anymore - in business, in my personal life or whatever. And now, as I work on my autobiography, I enjoy looking back, seeing the connections, the causes and effects of my life.

My parents are wonderful people and they instilled in me an idealism for which I'm grateful.

Retirement is unthinkable to me. The future is bright and very exciting and I'm looking forward to playing a part in it.

After world war all we got was a lot of conformity, and conservatism and when I was in college at the university of Illinois the skirt lengths dropped instead of going up as they had during the roaring twenties and I knew that was a very bad sign, and it is symbolic and reflective of a very repressive time, and some of that was laid the feet of the cold war.

I didn't want to repeat my parents life. I saw in their lives a routine and a lack of dreaming, a lack of the possibilities, a lack of passion. And I didn't want to live without passion.

Playboy, very clearly, from the outset, has fought against the historical repression of women. The notion that we were anywhere else simply defies the reality.

My folks were raised pure prohibitionist. They were very good people, with high moral standards - but very repressed. There was no hugging and kissing in my home.