A.J. [Muste] was a - as he likes to say, a radical pacifist.

[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.

My father was pretty independent. He was - he was arrested once in Nashville when he was on one of his sales trips because he had a black - guy to lunch. So that took a fair amount of courage at the time.

A reporter is never put off by somebody not wanting to be interviewed.

The death panel issue arose with Tom Daschle, who was originally going to be the Health Czar. Daschle became enamored with the British system and wrote a book about health care, which influenced President [Barack] Obama.

[Madness] happened so frequently. I think what I was most maddest about - and it's in the book [Speaking Freely: A Memoir] - when the House and the Senate, back in 1984, were debating a bill that would - at least delay and maybe stop some of the ex - summary execution of disabled children - infants. And the Down syndrome kids and other kids had been, in some cases, routinely let die, to use the euphemism.

I've always been amused by [Bob] Dylan; I don't think he's been amused by me.