[Miranda Hentoff] was teaching once at Lincoln Center, and the hall was full of other professionals - musicians, professors, teachers. And she was explaining how [Béla] Bartok composed his second piano concerto. And she explained how the music was interwoven with the rhythms and what he had in his mind. And I was just stunned. This is a kid who used to work - on a piano with a cracked keyboard.

A liberal was somebody who expected and hoped that government would help the poor - you know, that whole routine. I did not know then and I've learned since that in an area that means a lot to me, free speech, liberals are as bad as many conservatives in trying to censor speech.

[My wife Margot] was the - I guess, the coordinator or the production manager [of The Jazz Review], and we got to know each other and we married.

I had not been very kind to J. Edgar Hoover. And the field agent had written on - it was sent directly to Hoover - that - the director should see this - `And, besides, Hentoff is a lousy writer.' And I thought that went a bit far.

[Barack] Obama seems to have no firm principles that I can discern that he will adhere to.

[Max Askeli] started this very good magazine [The Reporter]. In fact, Meg Greenfield, who's now the editorial page editor of The Washington Post, was one of the star reporters there.

We need to keep trying to rescue the Constitution from the President.