It was Ronald Reagan who used to say that the 10 most frightening words in the English language are, "I'm from the federal government, and I'm here to help."

A good bachelor drinks his dessert (and sometimes the rest of his meals). A sweet tooth is a danger signal that you're getting too much exercise and not enough cocktails.

Most of us had never seen a sober redneck before, and we have the Reagan Landslide to testify that none of us ever wants to see one again. It was a horrifying apparition. And ever since Jimmy Carter, all of us rednecks have had to be very careful to be drunk rednecks lest we turn into some kind of awful creature with big buck teeth and a State Department full of human-rights yahoos.

I like to do my principal research in bars, where people are more likely to tell the truth or, at least, lie less convincingly than they do in briefings and books.

I like the fact that they still run substantive pieces. I'm not sure I like the pieces, but it's nice that they do that. Anyway, it was always sort of ridiculous, me having anything to do with the youth culture, but now that I'm in my 50s, it's extra-double-ridiculous. They were losing interest in me, and I was losing interest in them. When I went to renegotiate my contract at Rolling Stone, I kind of halfheartedly asked if I could do half the work for half the money, and they asked if I could do two-thirds of the work for half the money. I ran that by my agent, since he can do math.

Predicting innovation is something of a self-canceling exercise: the most probable innovations are probably the least innovative.

Liberalism is just Communism sold by the drink.