It is one thing to choose to go into a hospice; it's another thing to get on the air and tell everybody about it.

A humorist has to be taken seriously before he's considered a real writer.

I found out I'd spent my whole life believing things that weren't necessarily accurate. My sisters' memories of certain events are entirely different from mine.

I've known Don since he came to Washington. When he first came to work for George W. Bush, he was a different Don Rumsfeld. He was jolly, full of life, and ready to go to war, but only if we could win.

Unless they've had some experience with it, the hospice is still a mystery to most people. Because hospice deals with death, people tend not to talk about it.

There was tremendous pressure to take dialysis, and there were lots of tears when I broke the news to the family that I was not going to do it.

I was put on earth to make people laugh.

Becoming eighty is a matter of life or death. I chose life. It is a much better position to be in, and it's easier on your back.

Being in the hospice didn't work out exactly the way I had expected. By all rights, I should have finished my time here in mid-March 2006 - at least, that's when Medicare stopped paying.

The Marine Corps was the first father figure I had ever known.