So the America I loved still exists, if not in the White House or the Supreme Court or the Senate or the House of Representatives or the media. The America I love still exists at the front desks of our public libraries.

If I were a younger man, I would write a history of human stupidity; and I would climb to the top of Mount McCabe and lie down on my back with my history for a pillow; and I would take from the ground some of the blue-white poison that makes statues of men; and I would make a statue of myself, lying on my back, grinning horribly, and thumbing my nose at You Know Who.

There is no shortage of wonderful writers. What we lack is a dependable mass of readers.

Take life seriously but none of the people in it.

I think jokes are a perfectly viable form of literature. Some critics take issue with me because I make my points and discuss my ideas with jokes, rather than with oceanic tragedy.

I can see where influential people would like Maharishi better than Jesus. My God, if the Beatles and Mia Farrow went to Jesus, He'd tell them to give all their money away.

The function of the artist is to make people like life better than they have before.