All that rejection from Republicans has a bit of a racist element. It was very necessary to have a black president, and it's been a great thing. It will help, in the end, to ease the trauma of slavery and civil war. The war against slavery cost almost 800,000 American lives - that's how strongly they felt about it. And it's not going to go away in a century.

The satirist isn't just looking at things ironically but militantly - he wants to change them, and intends to have an effect on the world.

Vidal gives the impression of believing that the entire heterosexual edifice - registry offices, 'Romeo and Juliet,' the disposable diaper - is just a sorry story of self-hypnosis and mass hysteria: a hoax, a racket, or sheer propaganda.

They're always looking forward to going places they're just coming back from, or regretting doing things they haven't yet done. They say hello when they mean goodbye.

Bullets cannot be recalled. They cannot be uninvented. But they can be taken out of the gun.

My 12-year-old daughter said to me, "Enough with the subtitles, Daddy, for crying out loud." Because they always seem to cloud the issue rather than clarify it.

Addictions do come in handy sometimes: at least you have to get out of bed for them.