This book, "Speaking Freely," starts when I came to New York. And the first chapter is about a man who became a friend of mine, much to our mutual surprise, Malcolm X.

Under the British healthcare system, there is a commission that decides whether or not, based on your age and physical condition, the government should continue to pay for your health.

William Shawn was the editor of The New Yorker and for whom I worked for, God, 27 years; a man I respected enormously because of what he did, - what the magazine was about.

Tom [Hentoff] - it started when he was the editor of the paper at Wesleyan and the - members of the staff. This was the first wave of political correctness. The editors of the staff members came and said he must - he must, from now on, stop using `freshmen' and - in-as part of the policy of the paper. It had to be `freshperson.' Therefore, you don't - you're not discriminating against males or females. They were very fervent about that, and he was equally fervent about not politicizing language. So until he left, `freshmen' stayed.

Inside that quietude there was the firmest of wills. [Bill Shawn] knew exactly what he wanted to do.

At the time there was a hospital strike in New York and the Catholic hospitals were part of a general consortium, and the head of the consortium had decided that they were finally going to replace some of the striking workers. And I hear [John] O'Connor yelling, `Over my dead body will you replace any of those workers! They have a right to strike.' So I figured, `This is interesting.'

I've been reading since I could read, which was about four or five years old.