Finland is a rich country. What have they got? They got Nokia phones and plywood. How'd they get so rich? Because they're free.

Because of their cuisine, Germans don't consider farting rude. They'd certainly be out of luck if they did.

Smoking crack is a way for people who couldn't afford college to study the works of Charles Darwin.

The real slums are another matter. The bad parts of Tondo are as bad as any place I've seen, ancient, filthy houses swarmed with the poor and stinking of sewage and trash. But there are worse parts - squatter areas where people live under cardboard, in shipping crates, behind tacked-up newspapers. Dad would march you straight to the basement with a hairbrush in his hand if he caught you keeping your hamster cage like this.

When I became a man, I put away childish things and got more elaborate and expensive childish things from France and Japan.

There are artists with palettes and easels selling the kind of modern art that Soviet art critics used to critique with bulldozers. Judging by the paintings I saw, the Soviets were right the first time.

A pleasant natural environment is a good - a luxury good, philosophical good, a moral goody-good, a good time for all. Whatever, we want it. If we want something, we should pay for it, with our labor or our cash. We shouldn't beg it, steal it, sit around wishing for it, or euchre the government into taking it by force.