I treat people who write me the way my friends and I all treat each other when we go to each other for advice, which is sometimes with supreme cruelty.

You know, my problem is I can't say no to people, especially people who want to write me checks to do things.

Friends confront each other sometimes, and sometimes the friendship lasts, and sometimes it doesn't.

One man's blasphemy doesn't override other people's free-speech rights, their freedom to publish, freedom of thought.

I treat people the way I want to be treated, which makes me odd.

Sometimes I talk to religious people about my column or what I do, and I ask them to, you know, read 20 or 30 of them and then come tell me that the message at the heart of every column isn't, 'Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.' In every possible sense.