My own feeling is that if adultery is wickedness then so is food. Both make me feel so much better afterward.

I go on many thrilling adventures and wondrous, profound escapades through books.

How embarrassing to be human.

The two real political parties in America are the Winners and the Losers. The people don't acknowledge this. They claim membership in two imaginary parties, the Republicans and the Democrats, instead.

Has any psychological experiment yielded a more delightful suggestion than this one: that there is a part of the mind without ambition or information, which nonetheless is expert on what is beautiful?

When I worked with General Electric, again this was soon after the Second World War, you know, I was keeping up with new developments and they showed me a milling machine and this thing worked by punch cards - that's where computers were at that time, and everybody was sort of sheepish about how well this thing worked because in those days machinists were treated as though they were great musicians because they were virtuosos on these machines.

What war has always been is a puberty ceremony. It's a very rough one, but you went away a boy and came back a man, maybe with an eye missing or whatever but godammit you were a man and people had to call you a man thereafter.