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

Political stuff is all about his [Hunter S. Thompson] reaction to a situation. And my stuff is much more externally driven.

The motorcycle is a device created by the team of God and Darwin to rid the world of useless young males.

I'd known the people at Rolling Stone for a while. I'd gone to them with a piece I'd done on Beirut for Vanity Fair that Vanity Fair didn't want to publish, because they said I was making fun of death... This was Tina Brown.But they paid me for it. So I've got this big chunk of a piece, and Rolling Stone liked it, but they thought it was a little dated. But then they called me back and asked me to do a similar piece about the Turks and Caicos Islands, where the whole government had been arrested for dope smuggling. That was fun.

I was told to hand over my disposable lighter, to prevent, I suppose, any threat of "Do what I say or I'll light this Marlboro and you'll all die - in thirty years due to inhalation of secondhand smoke."

I rarely meet a politician that I don't like personally. They are generally well endowed with charm. Therein lies the danger.

There are just two rules of governance in a free society: Mind your own business. Keep your hands to yourself.