Great Throughts Treasury

"When government does, occasionally, work, it works in an elitist fashion. That is, government is most easily manipulated by people who have money and power already. This is why government benefits usually go to people who don?t need benefits from government. Government may make some environmental improvements, but these will be improvements for rich bird-watchers. And no one in government will remember that when poor people go bird-watching they do it at Kentucky Fried Chicken."

"When I board an airplane these days, all the middle-aged men are dressed like me - when I was an 8-year-old. They're in shorts and T-shirts. And it's not just on airplanes. It's in business offices, teachers' lounges, and churches."

"When I was fifteen, I dreamed of living in the big city, as many a young person does if he is artistic and sensitive. By 'artistic and sensitive' I mean short, skinny, unkissed, bad at sports, and carrying a C average in high school."

"When you're a war correspondent, the reader is for you because the reader is saying, 'Gee, I wouldn't want to be doing that.' They're on your side."

"When I'm in the car, I want the only one shouting to be me."

"When you pay a hospital bill, you're really paying two hospital bills - one bill for you because you have a job and/or insurance and can pay the hospital. and another bill, which is tacked onto your bill, to cover the medical expenses of someone who doesn't have a job and/or insurance and can't pay the hospital."

"When the government runs out of lenders, it can do something that households are forbidden to do: print money."

"Wherever there's injustice, oppression, and suffering, America will show up six months late and bomb the country next to where it's happening."

"When someone detonates a suicide bomb, that person does not have career prospects."

"Who does Bill Clinton think got off the boat and stepped on Plymouth Rock? Peace Corps volunteers?"

"Who, other than a crazy person, does anything besides hang up on a robo-call? Any call, any person, anywhere, under any circumstances."

"Why do elites hate the poor? It's xenophobia. They don't know any poor people - except their off-the-books Brazilian nanny and illegal immigrant cleaning lady from Upper Revolta who don't speak English."

"Why can't death - if we must have it - be always glorious, as in 'The Iliad?'"

"Why is Iraq so easy to harm and so hard to help?"

"Will Generation X and the Millennials do a better job running the world than the boomers have? Let's hope so."

"Woodstock had a tremendous impact on American artistic life."

"You can keep the dining room clean by eating in the kitchen."

"Worshiping the earth is more fun than going to church. It's also closer. We can just step off the sidewalk. And sometimes we can get impressionable members of the opposite sex to perform sacramental rites with us. Every drop of water wasted is a drop less of a wild and scenic river, Jennifer. We'd better double up in the shower. , All the trouble in the world. The lighter side of famine, pestilence, destruction and death...and biotechnology is a worry. What if they take genetic material from wet noodles and blowfish and splice it into politician chromosomes and create a Clinton administration?"

"Writing on a computer makes saving what's been written too easy. Pretentious lead sentences are kept, not tossed. Instead of sitting surrounded by crumpled paper, the computerized writer has his mistakes neatly stored in digital memory."

"You don't despair about something like the Middle East, you just do the best you can."

"You know your children are growing up when they stop asking you where they came from and refuse to tell you where they're going."

"You know, if government were a product, selling it would be illegal."

"You may be surprised to discover you're rich, especially if you're broke."

"You can learn all about the human condition from covering the crime beat in a big city - you don't need to go to Beirut for that - but a foreign correspondent begins to understand poverty from a different perspective."

"You can?t get rid of poverty by giving people money."

"You can?t get good Chinese takeout in China and Cuban cigars are rationed in Cuba. That?s all you need to know about communism."

"You can't destroy America by destroying our elite. Think about America's elite. Think about it down through history. Destroy our elite, and about half the time, you're doing us a favor."

"You can't get good Chinese takeout in China and Cuban cigars are rationed in Cuba. That's all you need to know about communism."

"You can't shame or humiliate modern celebrities. What used to be called shame and humiliation is now called publicity. And forget traditional character assassination; if you say a modern celebrity is an adulterer, a pervert and a drug addict, all it means is that you've read his autobiography."

"You're never going to read 'The Wealth of Nations,' and you shouldn't, really. It's 900 pages."

"'You're stupid,' is not something even his most severe critics usually say to President Barack Obama."

"You're not a baby boomer if you don't have a visceral recollection of a Kennedy and a King assassination, a Beatles breakup, a U.S. defeat in Vietnam, and a Watergate."

"You say we [reporters] are distracting from the business of government. Well, I hope so. Distracting a politician from governing is like distracting a bear from eating your baby."

"You've got to understand, people are motivated by fun. And they should be."

"You'll note that politicians no longer spend money, they invest it. Don't worry about paying more to the [IRS]. You aren't being taxed; you're taking a plunge on a fly-by-night stock issue."

"Zero-sum thinking is an obsession of mine, but mostly in economics."