I'm old enough to remember when the air over American cities was a lot dirtier than it is now. You've probably never woken up early on a winter morning to the acid stink of coal smoke in the air, which was everywhere when I was a little kid. My grade school was heated with coal. Not only was coal used to generate electricity, it was without any scrubbers in the stacks.

The Chinese had gunpowder, but it didn't occur to them to put it in a gun. They possessed the compass but didn't go anywhere. They invented paper, printing, and a written form of their language, but hardly anyone in China was taught to read.

Southern California is a nice place, if you could cut out the show-business cancer. It just keeps spreading.

[ I'm] humorist, I guess. Or really more of a reporter. A reporter who reports on funny things.

Only one way to cover a story like this, and make that a double, bartender, please.

What would be a road hazard anywhere else, in the Third World is probably the road.

I don't think I'll ever be a real boat reporter. My Rolex isn't big enough.