The chief weapon of sea pirates, however, was their capacity to astonish. Nobody else could believe, until it was too late, how heartless and greedy they were.

During my three years in Vietnam, I certainly heard plenty of last words by dying American footsoldiers. Not one of them, however, had illusions that he had somehow accomplished something worthwhile in the process of making the Supreme Sacrifice.

You know what I say to people when I hear they?re writing an anti-war book?? I say, "why don?t you write an anti-glacier book instead?"
What he meant, of course, was that there would always be wars, that they were as easy to stop as glaciers. I believe that, too.

Well, the telling of jokes is an art of its own, and it always rises from some emotional threat. The best jokes are dangerous, and dangerous because they are in some way truthful.

Thanks to TV and for the convenience of TV, you can only be one of two kinds of human beings, either a liberal or a conservative.

One of the few good things about modern times: If you die horribly on television, you will not have died in vain. You will have entertained us.

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.

Ignore the awful times, and concentrate on the good ones.

I want to stay as close to the edge as I can without going over. Out on the edge you see all kinds of things you can’t see from the Centre.

Like so many Americans, she was trying to construct a life that made sense from things she found in gift shops.