6 quotes
The period of Prohibition — called the noble experiment — brought on the greatest breakdown of law and order the United States has known until today. I think there is a lesson here.
Matters of Fact and Fiction : Essays 1973–1976 (1978)
The United States was founded by the brightest people in the country — and we haven't seen them since.
Matters of Fact and Fiction : Essays 1973–1976 (1978)
That peculiarly American religion, President-worship.
Matters of Fact and Fiction : Essays 1973–1976 (1978)
Big oil, big steel, big agriculture avoid the open marketplace. Big corporations fix prices among themselves and thus drive out of business the small entrepreneur. Also, in their conglomerate form, the huge corporations have begun to challenge the very legitimacy of the state.
Matters of Fact and Fiction : Essays 1973–1976 (1978)
The genius of our ruling class is that it has kept a majority of the people from ever questioning the inequity of a system where most people drudge along, paying heavy taxes for which they get nothing in return ...
Matters of Fact and Fiction : Essays 1973–1976 (1978)
In any case, rather like priests who have forgotten the meaning of the prayers they chant, we shall go on for quite a long time talking of books and writing books, pretending all the while not to notice that the church is empty and the parishioners have gone elsewhere to attend other gods, perhaps in silence or with new words.
Matters of Fact and Fiction : Essays 1973–1976 (1978)