Contemporary politics is all about phony energy, about running around slamming doors for the sake of it-or, more to the point, opening them and tossing through a huge sack of taxpayer dollars.

How do you get to Carnegie Hall? Practice. How do you get away from it? Improvise.

Anything that shifts power from the individual judgment of free citizens to government is a bad thing.

The best reason to diminish social programs is not to put more money in people's pockets but to put more responsibility in people's pockets.

The state of our civilization manifests itself both in the non-problems that terrify us beyond all reason - rising sea levels - and in the real problems we pay no heed to [population decline]...In reality, much of the planet will be uninhabited long before it's uninhabitable

[Charles] Manson wanted to start a race war. Nobody said he was leading some sort of charge about white supremacy.

Can't spell, can't spot fake Shakespeare, can't tell one wacky foreigner from another: it's increasingly obvious that Barbra is some deep sleeper planted by the Republicans to discredit the very concept of activist celebrities. Poor old Democrats, in thrall to her fundraising: people who need Barbra are the unluckiest people in the world.