I am optimistic. I have to be optimistic.

Duke Ellington had a song, "What Am I Here For?" - this is what being pro-life is.

I was lecturing at the Columbia Journalism School of Education. I asked them about what was happening to the Fourth Amendment. I said, "By the way, do you know what is in the Fourth Amendment?" One student responded, "Is that the right to bear arms?" It's hard to believe these are bright students.

That [race] is still part of what [Barack Obama] is riding on. Except that, too, is diminishing.

I don't like to feel intimidated by where I make a living.

The Voice has been politically correct in many of its aspects since before that term was ever used.

I told [a big investor in The New Yorker] - I was complaining the way writers complain.I said`[Bill Shawn] pays very well, but a lot of my pieces don't get in,' and that was true of most of the writers there.But he pays you for them, that was very nice of him. This guy didn't think it was very nice. He figured, `Oh, my God, that's more of my investment gone,' and paying money to writers for not printing them. That became, apparently, one of his weapons against Shawn when he - in the corporate skirmishes that went on. It was a bad mistake on my part.