Mike had called me and said he could offer me less, and I said, "You're on!" Because I was really excited with what Mike Kelly was doing, and now what Cullen Murphy is doing with Atlantic. It's a really cool magazine.

Off they go on this sort of camping trip to Iwo Jima, where they're taken around and shown where all the battles took place. It's very moving. Disgusting little island, though. Still an active volcano. Stinks of sulfur. There are dead Japanese everywhere under that island. It's icky. But I knew I would never have another chance to go, so I took the job.

Your money does not cause my poverty. Refusal to believe this is at the bottom of most bad economic thinking.

Lampoon was exactly the opposite. The work was a lot of fun, but the office environment was hell. You cannot put 20 humorists together.

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.

The key ingredient of politics is the idea that all of society's ills can be cured politically. It's like a cookbook where the recipe for everything is to fry it. The fruit cocktail is fried.

The interesting thing about staring down a gun barrel is how small the hole is where the bullet comes out, yet what a big difference it would make in your social schedule.