Behind every door in London there are stories, behind every one ghosts. The greatest writers in the history of the written word have given them substance, given them life. And so we readers walk, and dream, and imagine, in the city where imagination found its great home.

I'm writing this memoir from the perspective of somebody who's prosperous and has means. Having said that, one of the things that I think I discovered about those additional years is that I don't think they really are added to the end of life.

The best thing about Sassy Seats is that grandmothers cannot figure out how they work and are in constant fear of the child's falling. This often makes them forget to comment on other aspects of the child's development, like why he is not yet talking or is still wearing diapers. Some grandmothers will spend an entire meal peering beneath the table and saying, "Is that thing steady?" rather than, "Have you had a doctor look at that left hand?

Real friends offer both hard truths and soft landings and realize that it's sometimes more important to be nice than to be honest.

People who wish to salute the free and independent side of their evolutionary character acquire cats. People who wish to pay homage to their servile and salivating roots own dogs.

New York City has finally hired women to pick up the garbage, which makes sense to me, since, as I've discovered, a good bit of being a woman consists of picking up garbage.

the separation of church and state grew out of a desire, not so much to protect government from religion, but to protect religion from government.