You know — we've had to imagine the war here, and we have imagined that it was being fought by aging men like ourselves. We had forgotten that wars were fought by babies. When I saw those freshly shaved faces, it was a shock. "'My God, my God — ' I said to myself, 'It's the Children's Crusade.

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.

My special situation was that I was the son and grandson of architects. And so I saw building. We were building the city, and that was exciting.

Here was what Kilgore Trout cried out to me in my father's voice: "Make me young, make me young, make me young!

Rabo Karabekian: I'm in the middle of a sentence. Circe Berman: Who isn't?.

I realize that some of you may have come in hopes of hearing tips on how to become a professional writer. I say to you, "If you really want to hurt your parents, and you don't have the nerve to be a homosexual, the least you can do is go into the arts. But do not use semicolons. They are transvestite hermaphrodites, standing for absolutely nothing. All they do is show you've been to college.

We could have saved the earth, but we were too damned cheap.