All my humor is based upon destruction and despair. If the whole world were tranquil, without disease and violence, I’d be standing on the breadline right in back of J. Edgar Hoover.

The American Constitution was not written to protect criminals; it was written to protect the government from becoming criminals.

The 'what should be' never did exist, but people keep trying to live up to it. There is no 'what should be,' there is only what is.

There's a lot of money in wars, except in the war on poverty. Can't make any bread helping the poor.

If Jesus had been killed twenty years ago, Catholic school children would be wearing little electric chairs around their necks instead of crosses.

It's the suppression of the word that gives it the power, the violence, the viciousness.

Guys are like dogs. They keep comin' back. Ladies are like cats. Yell at a cat one time, they're gone.

I think it's about time we gave up religion and got back to God.

You can't do anything with anybody's body to make it dirty to me. Six people, eight people, one person - you can do only one thing to make it dirty: kill it. Hiroshima was dirty.

Freedom of speech is a two way street, man. You have the right to say whatever you want and the Boss has a right to tell the police to arrest you.

There are no dirty words, only dirty minds.

Demands for equality need to be as complicated as the inequalities they seek to address.

Love is a force.... It is not a result; it is a cause. It is not a product; it produces.

I was nothing more than a thug with Tolstoy in my pocket.

Ideas are not thoughts; the thought respects the boundaries that the idea ignores thereby failing to realize itself.

There's an explosion of Indian fiction of all kinds, from military thrillers to chicklit. I think that's exciting.

Metaphors hide in plain sight, and their influence is largely unconscious. We should mind our metaphors, though, because metaphors make up our minds.

The only countries that are outside of [ Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty] are Israel, Pakistan, India, and North Korea withdrew in the last few years.

Scripture is the royal scepter by which King Jesus rules his church

I've never declined to do an interview.

I wish Frank Sinatra would just shut up and sing.