Think of the earth as a living organism that is being attacked by billions of bacteria whose numbers double every forty years. Either the host dies, … - Gore Vidal

American writers want to be not good but great; and so are neither.

I shared, naturally, in that hatred of organized labor which has been the one political constant in my lifetime, culminating in Ronald Reagan's most popular gesture, the smashing of the air-controllers' union. No alternative view of organized labor has ever come to us through the popular media. If labor leaders were not crooks like Jimmy Hoffa, they were in the pay of Moscow.

Reality is something the human race doesn't handle very well.