I write because I like to make things and the only things I am good at making things with are words.

When a government controls both the economic power of individuals and the coercive power of the state ... this violates a fundamental rule of happy living: Never let the people with all the money and the people with all the guns be the same people.

Dates used to be made days or even weeks in advance. Now dates tend to be made the day after. That is, you get a phone call from someone who says, "If anyone asks, I was out to dinner with you last night, okay?"

I think Michael O'Donoghue felt he'd said what he wanted to say. In fact, nobody thought we could spin it out long enough to make a book.

Intelligence collection has been given an additional bureaucracy to correct the problems created by too much bureaucracy in intelligence collection.

Gambling is so pervasive in Nevada that maybe the state should just go the whole hog. There'd be gum machines that dispensed chewing tobacco if you lost. You could gamble for the toilet paper in public bathroom stalls. And fill out Keno cards in an attempt to win cancer therapy at the hospital.

Humans are the only animals that have children on purpose with the exception of guppies, who like to eat theirs.