“Government should do a few things, and do them right”

“A man who could do with doing things that will last forever and ever should do things right in this day and age.”

“Every time something really bad happens, people cry out for safety, and the government answers by taking rights away from good people. We have no proof that the bad, stupid crazy people who have planted bombs in the past few years used the phone much for their stupid bad crimes, let alone logged on the Internet. Yet when those kind of bad things happen nowadays, the government tries to do bad things to phones and the Net. The phones and the Internet are just good smart things, and the government should leave them alone. You have to watch the government all the time on everything. Thomas Jefferson didn't say that, but he said something very close to that.”

“You only have to do a very few things right in your life so long as you don't do too many things wrong.”

“Literature is not at the service of the government; on the contrary, governments should do everything in their power to create a favourable climate for literature.”

“And maybe no better. There is no government in Mexico. Hell, there's no God in Mexico. Never will be. We are dealing with a people manifestly incapable of governing themselves. And do you know what happens with people who cannot govern themselves? That's right. Others come in to govern for them.”