We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful what we pretend to be.

I can think of no more stirring symbol of man's humanity to man than a fire engine.

One thing I found out was that we need extended families. We need gangs. And, of course, if they're tribes and clans and so forth have been dispersed by the industrial revolution by people looking for work wherever they can find it. And a nuclear family, a man, a woman and kids and a dog and cat is no survival scheme at all. Horribly vulnerable.

George W. Bush has gathered around him upper-crust C-students who know no history or geography.

The complicated futility of ignorance.

Trout, incidentally, had written a book about a money tree. It had twenty-dollar bills for leaves. Its flowers were government bonds. Its fruit was diamonds. It attracted human beings who killed each other around the roots and made very good fertilizer.

Sometimes I think it is a great mistake to have matter that can think and feel. It complains so.