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

I was very much against the Vietnam War, and Max Askeli was visiting Lyndon Johnson in the White House cheering him on, writing editorials. And in The Voice one day I once referred to him as Commander Askeli. And I called in to The Reporter to go over the galleys of a music piece I had written, and the editor whispered to me, `It's not gonna run. You're not gonna run. Max Askeli has fired you because of what you said about him.'

The main jobs would be The New Yorker, The Village Voice, The Washington Post and - I'm thinking of The Reporter when Max Askeli was there, but I got fired from The Reporter.

I am against anybody who uses violence to make their points.

The second wife [Trudi Bernstein] - the best part of that union, our two daughters, and that lasted about five years.

[A.J. Muste] never engaged in violence but he believed, as [Mahatma] Gandhi did - and he knew Gandhi slightly - he believed that a pacifist had to be active in the community.

We hear talk now about reforming public education. There are billions of dollars at stake for such a reform. But I have not heard Arne Duncan, who is the U.S. Education Secretary, mention once the civic illiteracy in the country.