I spent almost 25 years as a foreign correspondent, and the world's primary problem is poverty.

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

Bob Wallace was my editor at Rolling Stone when I first started writing there, and he's a wonderful editor. I was in the Philippines during the Marcos overthrow, and I was up on what was called Smokey Mountain. I think it's gone now, but it was a garbage dump with a bunch of people living on it. I was talking to Bob on the phone, and I told him, "I'm a humorist. I can't write about this." And Bob told me to let my style be dictated by the subject, to take what I saw and write about it in the tone that it requires.

Journalists are notoriously easy to kid. All you have to do is speak to a journalist in a very serious tone of voice, and he will be certain that you are either telling the truth or a big, important lie.

If the dollar weakens, then presumably all the things that we make in the United States - Buicks, for instance - can be sold cheap all over the world, and everyone will be buying our goods, and we'll get all sorts of yen-denominated, or yuan-denominated, or euro-denominated securities, and then everybody else will be worried.

Self-interest leads to honing your skills, the better to trade with.

Anyway, no drug, not even alcohol, causes the fundamental ills of society. If we're looking for the source of our troubles, we shouldn't test people for drugs, we should test them for stupidity, ignorance, greed and love of power.