Human beings are chimpanzees who get crazy drunk on power. By saying that our leaders are power-drunk chimpanzees, am I in danger of wrecking the morale of our soldiers fighting and dying in the Middle East? Their morale, like so many bodies, is already shot to pieces. They are being treated, as I never was, like toys a rich kid got for Christmas.

There was no immunity to cuckoo ideas on Earth.

It's an astonishing skill that people can read, and read well. Very few people can read well. For instance, I have to be very careful with irony, saying something while meaning the exact opposite.

I don't think there would be many jokes, if there weren't constant frustration and fear and so forth. It's a response to bad troubles like crime.

There is a strong feeling in the Middle West that the artist is not pulling his own weight no matter how hard he may work, that the other people are doing the real stuff.

Every writer has to write his speech.

Take life seriously but none of the people in it.