America has a history of political isolation and economic self-sufficiency; its citizens have tended to regard the rest of the world as a disaster area from which lucky or pushy people emigrate to the Promised Land.

You get into the habit of being angry and hurt by life, and then when something good happens you can't accept it because it doesn't fit the pattern.

Other wars end eventually in victory, defeat or exhaustion, but the war between men and women goes on forever.

in a sense much great literature is subversive, since its very existence implies that what matters is art, imagination, and truth. In what we call the real world, on the other hand, what usually counts is money, power, and public success.

When other people first became aware of the cow, they expressed concern and anxiety. They suggested strategies for getting the animal out of Molly's parlor: remedies and doctors and procedures, some mainstream and some New Age. They related anecdotes of friends who had removed their own cows in one way or another. But after a while they had exhausted their suggestions. Then they usually began to pretend that the cow wasn't there, and they preferred for Molly to go along with the pretense.

We can lie in the language of dress or try ot tell the truth; but unless we are naked and bald, it is impossible to be silent.

Real literature, like travel, is always a surprise.