Lampoon ran out of steam in the early '80s, and wasn't able to reinvent itself because it ran out of talent. People who wanted to do this kind of stuff could suddenly make $100,000 in Hollywood right out of college.

America is the world's policeman, all right -- a big, dumb, mick flatfoot in the middle of the one thing cops dread most, a "domestic disturbance.

The Italians have had 2,000 years to fix up the Forum and just look at the place!

Never wear anything that panics the cat.

Children from the age of five to ten should watch more television. Television depicts adults as rotten SOB's given to fistfights, gunplay, and other mayhem. Kids who believe this about grownups aren't likely to argue about bedtime.

I think in the [Bill] Clinton era, if people hadn't been spending vast amounts of time attacking Clinton, they would have found that they had essentially the same problems as they do now.

The Lampoon started in 1970, and I began writing freelance for them around the end of 1971, and then all through '72. They hired me in '73, and I left early in '81. I did everything from low puns to being editor-in-chief.