The television anchorman Dan Rather turns up in rag-top native drag in Afghanistan, the surrogate of our culture with his camera crew, intrepid as Sir Richard Burton sneaking into Mecca.

Religious hatreds tend to be merciless and absolute.

Not to forgive is to be imprisoned by the past, by old grievances that do not permit life to proceed with new business.

For now, we assume that self-evolving robots will learn to mimic human traits, including, eventually, humor. And so, I can't wait to hear the first joke that one robot tells to another robot.

Over the years, he [Everett Dirksen] developed a style of infinitely subtle fustian, whose effect can still be remotely approximated by sipping twelve-year-old bourbon, straight, while reading Dickens aloud, in a sort of sepulchral purr.

Never try to wear a hat that has more character than you do.

The jumbo jet is the airborne equivalent of the interstate highway...One might as well be stuffed into a cartridge and shot through a pneumatic tube, like interoffice mail.