I've got news for Mr. Santayana: we're doomed to repeat the past no matter what. That's what it is to be alive.

I do not say that children at war do not die like men, if they have to die. To their everlasting honor and our everlasting shame, they do die like men, thus making possible the manly jubilation of patriotic holidays. But they are murdered children all the same.

That is my principal objection to life, I think: It's too easy, when alive, to make perfectly horrible mistakes.

The Circle Theatre, black people had to sit in the balcony. Any theater with a balcony, black people had to sit up there. Black people couldn't check into any hotel except their own. And black people couldn't eat anywhere except in their own restaurants.

Future generations will look back on TV as the lead in the water pipes that slowly drove the Romans mad.

Here's what I think the truth is: We are all addicts of fossil fuels in a state of denial, about to face cold turkey. And like so many addicts about to face cold turkey, our leaders are now committing violent crimes to get what little is left of what we're hooked on.

I am better now. Word of honour: I am better now.