I let my boy go and do and say pretty much as he likes, as, and perhaps because, my father kept no string on me.

My mother would thump me sharply on the head with a thimble or a spoon if I became too noisy with the whistle when I was playing I was a steamboat captain. She had no sense of the dignity of command.

Why is it that the less intelligence people have, the more spiritual they are? They seem to fill all the vacant, ignorant spaces in their heads with soul. Which explains how it is that the less knowledge they have, the more religion.

Nothing is done. Everything in the world remains to be done or done over. The greatest picture is not yet painted, the greatest play isn't written, the greatest poem is unsung. There isn't in all the world a perfect railroad, nor a good government, nor a sound law. Physics, mathematics, and especially the most advanced and exact of the sciences are being fundamentally revised. . . Psychology, economics, and sociology are awaiting a Darwin, whose work in turn is awaiting an Einstein.

I have seen the future, and it works.

So youve been over into Russia? said Bernard Baruch, and I answered very literally, I have been over into the future and it works.

My father, the practical joker, did not care for practical jokes on himself; he did not encourage the practice in me.