...the Japanese interest him professionally. How do they and the Germans do it, when America's going down the tubes? - John Updike

When I was in power, I found that experts can’t be trusted. For this simple reason: unlike tyrants, they are under no delusion that a country, a people is their body. Under this delusion a tyrant takes everything personally. An expert takes nothing personally. Nothing is ever precisely his fault. If a bridge collapses, or a war miscarries, he has already walked away. He still has his expertise. Also, — -people imagine that because a thing is big, it has had a great deal of intelligent thought given to it. This is not true. A big idea is even more apt to be wrong than a small one, because the scale is inorganic. The Great Wall, for instance, is extremely stupid. The two biggest phenomena in the world right now are Maoism and American television, and both are extremely stupid.

He didn't have a worry in the world back then. He was in paradise and didn't know it.

In show business you learn to let it slide off your back. You know, fuck 'em. Otherwise you'd kill yourself.