I read somewhere that when a person takes part in community action, his health improves. Something happens to him or to her biologically. It's like a tonic.

Once you wake up the human animal, you can't put it back to sleep again.

I'm not an optimist. I'm hopeful.

A guy I interviewed for Hard Times says, "What do I remember about the Great Depression? That I was hungry, that's all." Elemental things.

One day I visited a guy who had made a fortune as a broker. He was sitting in his office with his computer. I hire people from here and make deals from this room, he told me. Then he took me to the trading room. Nobody was talking to anybody else, the place was silent as a tomb, they were all sitting there watching their terminals - a great word, terminal. I tell you, it scares the crap out of me.

I never drove a car. I'm hopeless that way. I press the wrong buttons on the tape recorder. But if the person I'm interviewing helps me out, that person feels needed. People need to feel needed.

I call myself a radical conservative. What's that? Well, let's analyze it. Go to the dictionary. Radical: One who gets to the roots of things. And I'm a conservative because I want to conserve the green of the grass, the potability of drinking water, the first amendment of the Constitution and whatever sanity we have left.