Alas, irreverence has been subsumed by mere grossness, at least in the so-called mass media. What we have now - to quote myself at my most pretentious - is a nimiety of scurrility with a concomitant exiguity of taste.

You can raise welts like nobody else, as we dance to the Masochism Tango.

Comedy is very important. For one thing, it keeps you sane. But it's not really a conversion. I mean, it's marginally a conversion, because if people tune in or go to a nightclub or even watch television, and hear that a lot of other people are laughing at something you thought was not funny, at least it'll force you to reconsider.

We are the folk song army, every one of us cares. We all hate poverty, war, and injustice unlike the rest of you squares.

If the hoods don't get you, the monoxide will.

In one word he told me the secret of success in mathematics: plagiarize; only be sure always to call it . . . research.

Counting in octal is just likst counting in decimal--if you don't use your thumbs.