About astrology and palmistry: they are good because they make people vivid and full of possibilities. They are communism at its best. Everybody has a birthday and almost everybody has a palm.

Dear future generations: Please accept our apologies. We were rolling drunk on petroleum.

Most writers are not quick-witted when they talk. Novelists, in particular, drag themselves around in society like gut-shot bears.

Vietnam was a country where America was trying to make people stop being communists by dropping things on them from airplanes.

Earthlings went on being friendly, when they should have been thinking instead.

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

The city was blacked out because bombers might come, so Billy didn't get to see Dresden do one of the most cheerful things a city can do when the sun goes down, which is to wink its lights on one by one.