I still believe that peace and plenty and happiness can be worked out some way. I am a fool.

I have been a writer since 1949. I am self-taught. I have no theories about writing that might help others. When I write, I simply become what I seemingly must become. I am six feet two and weigh nearly two hundred pounds and am badly coordinated, except when I swim. All that borrowed meat does the writing. In the water I am beautiful.

The best jokes are dangerous, and dangerous because they are in some way truthful.

The book was Maniacs in the Fourth Dimension, by Kilgore Trout. It was about people whose mental diseases couldn't be treated because the causes of the diseases were all in the fourth dimension, and three-dimensional Earthling doctors couldn't see those causes at all, or even imagine them.

I am eternally grateful for my knack of finding in great books, some of them very funny books, reason enough to feel honored to be alive, no matter what else might be going on.

One of the main effects of war, after all, is that people are discouraged from being characters.

I don't think there would be many jokes, if there weren't constant frustration and fear and so forth. It's a response to bad troubles like crime.