A purpose of human life, no matter who is controlling it, is to love whoever is around to be loved.

The only difference between Hitler and Bush is that Hitler was elected.

The smartest people in Indianapolis became teachers [during the Great Depression]. And, for once, there was something for women to do because teaching was regarded as a woman's profession, like nursing. So the smartest women in town - Jesus, my women teachers were so exciting.

Human beings are chimpanzees who get crazy drunk on power. By saying that our leaders are power-drunk chimpanzees, am I in danger of wrecking the morale of our soldiers fighting and dying in the Middle East? Their morale, like so many bodies, is already shot to pieces. They are being treated, as I never was, like toys a rich kid got for Christmas.

In the middle of Siberia I guess there's a lake that big [ like the Great Lakes], but there are practically no other lakes that big with fresh water.

There is this thing called the university, and everybody goes there now. And there are these things called teachers who make students read this book with good ideas or that book with good ideas until that's where we get our ideas. We don't think them; we read them in books. I like Utopian talk, speculation about what our planet should be, anger about what our planet is. I think writers are the most important members of society, not just potentially but actually. Good writers must have and stand by their own ideas.

It's a nice glass of champagne at the end of a life.