What Franklin Roosevelt did, which really offended them, was he strengthened the labor unions - made it possible for them to strike. The oligarchs were furious because the working class was not supposed to have any power at all.

It goes against the American storytelling grain to have someone in a situation he can't get out of, but I think this is very usual in life.

Everyone now knows how to find the meaning of life within himself.

As a matter of social class Ku Klux Klan would have been regarded as white trash.

You realize, of course, that everything I say is horseshit.

I couldn't survive my own pessimism if I didn't have some kind of sunny little dream.

I have this disease late at night sometimes, involving alcohol and the telephone. I get drunk, and I drive my wife away with a breath like mustard gas and roses. And then, speaking gravely and elegantly into the telephone, I ask the telephone operators to connect me with this friend or that one, from whom I have not heard in years.