The world is being run by irresponsible spoiled brats.

Political leaders are expert at saying nothing.

People say, 'Oh, politics is so polarized today,' and I'm thinking... '1861, that was polarized.'

Governments have monopolies on certain things, like eminent domain and deadly force.

The good thing about SUVs is they have storage.

Just because a subject is serious doesn't mean it doesn't have plenty of absurdities.

The two most frightening words in Washington are 'bipartisan consensus.' Bipartisan consensus is when my doctor and my lawyer agree with my wife that I need help.

Freedom is not empowerment. Empowerment is what the Serbs have in Bosnia. Anybody can grab a gun and be empowered.

Now, do I think the baby boomers tend to be self-absorbed? I do.

Detroit's industrial ruins are picturesque, like crumbling Rome in an 18th-century etching.

One of the few benefits of being a journalist is that you're not in the Army.

I've only been to New Zealand once, about 1989. It was incredibly beautiful, kind of like the ideal of where I live in New England - all that and then some - but I can't say I was there long enough to get any very clear idea.

Earnestness is stupidity sent to college.

The words 'Space Age' have a quaint, nostalgic tone - sitting on midcentury modern furniture watching 'The Jetsons.'

Inside every Sancho Panza there's a Don Quixote struggling to get out.

It's better to make fun of yourself because you've always got someone around to make fun of, and they can't sue you.

Jeans fit the mature male one of two ways, both dirigible in nature. You make a public impression that's either Hindenburg or Goodyear blimp.

The foundation of collectivism is simple: There should be no important economic differences among people. No one should be too rich.

Of course, no one wants to ban the vote. Voting should remain available for sporting and recreational purposes. But certain types of votes clearly should be curtailed - 'assault votes,' for example, in which the only purpose of the vote is to harm others.

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

I come from Toledo, Ohio, a town that has been hurt badly by the shift of the automobile business towards Japan. And yet I remember how the car workers lived in the neighborhood that I grew up in. My father was a car salesman, and I remember how we lived. I remember how modestly we lived.

The job of the president of the United States is to talk to the public, is to explain to them. Now, some presidents talk too much, like Bill Clinton. Some presidents try to talk but don't know how, like George Bush senior.

The most futuristic aspect of the House of the Future was that it was made almost entirely of plastic.

Disney's Tomorrowland is deeply, thoroughly, almost furiously unimaginative.

Politicians are wonderful people as long as they stay away from things they don't understand, such as working for a living.

Term limits aren't enough. We need jail.

I knew Hunter Thompson since the '70s, and I loved him, but he would wear me out as I got older.

What Alexander Graham Bell thought up occupied less space than a flower vase. Now it's so small that I have to search all my pockets to discover I've received a spam text.

As a former writer for the 'National Lampoon,' I've probably contributed to the sea of sarcasm in which we live.

There's something about Marxism that brings out warts; the only kind of growth this economic system encourages.

Soccer matches should be something special, something people eagerly look forward to, something that brightens life.

Woodstock had a tremendous impact on American artistic life.

My whole family can talk. They are all car salesmen. They are all funny.

There isn't much room for an outsider point of view in print any more.

We need a government, alas, because of the nature of humans.

Affirmative action makes employers think, 'Black woman nuclear physicist? Hah! Probably let her into Harvard 'cause they were looking for a twofer. Bet she got C's in high school practical math. Give her a job in personnel.'

In Israel, waves of anger and fear circulate all the time, but so do jokes and gossip and silky evening breezes. So, too, in America.

Politics won't allow for the truth.

Ending wars is very simple if you surrender.

I have never been to a museum in Hong Kong, or a movie or a play. I've never gone club-hopping. I've never taken the tram to Victoria Peak.

The inherent purpose of American government is let people seek their own goals and to encourage them to be responsible on the various adventures they have on their way to those goals, good, bad, and otherwise.

My generation of Americans was the first to really care about racism and sexism, not to mention the I Ching, plus, of course, the Earth.

Only a few good leaders have paused to reflect seriously on being leaders.

I blame feminism and Facebook for the death of the American automobile. I'm a Republican, so I blame everything on feminism - or commies.

I am unboreable in the great outdoors.

I like Michael Moore, but I think of him more as a rabble-rouser. On his TV show, when he went to the home of the guy who invented the car alarm and set off all the car alarms on the block... pretty funny.

Politics is - once in a while - a forum for serious debate about political philosophy.

There are selves too big for one person to contain. You cannot call them selfish. There is nothing -ish about such selves. They are the self, as it were, itself.

I look around my house, and everything except the kids and dogs was made in China. And I'm not sure about the kids. They have brown eyes and small noses.

Jack Abramoff is the world's best lobbyist - for the Federal Penitentiary System.