I'm eighty-three and I've been smoking since I was eleven. I'm suing the cigarette company because it promised to kill me and it hasn't.

True terror is to wake up one morning and discover that your high school class is running the country.

We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful what we pretend to be.

There is a tragic flaw in our precious constitution, and I don't know what can be done to fix it. This is it: Only nut cases want to be president.

I want to stand as close to the edge as I can without going over. Out on the edge you see all the kinds of things you can't see from the center.

He didn't look like a soldier at all. He looked like a filthy flamingo.

Any reviewer who expresses rage and loathing for a novel is preposterous. He or she is like a person who has put on full armor and attacked a hot fudge sundae.

Perhaps I am the turtle, able to live simply anywhere, even underwater for short periods, with my home on my back.

About astrology and palmistry: they are good because they make people vivid and full of possibilities. They are communism at its best. Everybody has a birthday and almost everybody has a palm.

We are here on Earth to fart around. Don't let anybody tell you any different.

Enjoy your body, use it every way you can. Don’t be afraid of it, or what other people think of it, it’s the greatest instrument you’ll ever own.

. . . when it comes down to it, that’s what life is all about: showing up for the people you love, again and again, until you can’t show up anymore.

I don't write stories, I write characters.

I don't subscribe to labels. Unless I'm labeling other people.

Strive to be a proactive participant rather than a passive procrastinator.

Happiness doesn't just flow from success

The Senate being tied is a start. Now, if only it could be gagged.

I can't imagine how Afghanistan's fall isn't going to be ten times faster than Iraq's.

Anybody who helps the poor is delighted. So naturally, they (critics) are not very happy with us.

Warm-hearted! I should think he has to wear asbestos vests!

It isn't the past which holds us back, it's the future; and how we undermine it, today.