Allen Ginsberg was a remarkable guy. He was himself. He was an original.

I had written a book called "Boston Boy" some years ago, and that took me from the time I could speak, I guess, in Boston through the time when I finally left to come to New York. One was understanding and coping with anti-Semitism. Boston, at the time, was the most anti-Semitic city in the country. And I found out when I was an adolescent that you have to be crazy to go out after dark all by yourself; you'd get your head bashed in.

In that respect, Martin Luther King, whom A.J.[Muste] advised in the civil rights movement, was also a radical pacifist.

[John] McCarthy's regime was ended by Senators who realized that he had gone too far. What we have now may be more insidious.

Young people get very excited when they hear why they are Americans. It is not hard to do.

My father had always been a traveling salesman - New England, the South, whatever.

Miranda [Hentoff] is a complete musician. She's a composer, a singer. She writes scripts along - with her projects. And she's a superb teacher. Her teaching pupils have ranged from Itzhak Perlman to Sting.