One thing I learned, with permission of the school committee of Indianapolis, was that when a tyrant or a government gets in trouble it wonders what to do. Declare war! Then nothing else matters. It's like chess; when in doubt, castle.

Until you die .. it's all life.

I saw the destruction of Dresden. I saw the city before and then came out of an air-raid shelter and saw it afterward, and certainly one response was laughter. God knows, that's the soul seeking some relief.

See the cat? See the cradle?

During my three years in Vietnam, I certainly heard plenty of last words by dying American footsoldiers. Not one of them, however, had illusions that he had somehow accomplished something worthwhile in the process of making the Supreme Sacrifice.

the late twentieth century will go down in history, i'm sure, as an era of pharmaceutical buffoonery.

I want to stand as close to the edge as I can without going over. Out on the edge you see all the kinds of things you can't see from the center.