Life, after we'd had a few millennia to observe it, turned out to be dreadfully unfair, so we invented sports.

The trouble with American History is that you don't remember it, and why should you? Nobody does.

The United States government, in figuring our gross national product, defines 'durable goods' as anything that will last three years.

In a proper pub everyone there is potentially, if not a lifelong friend, at least someone to lure into an argument about foreign policy or the Red Sox.

Very few people have no opinions about cats.

Visiting is a pleasure; being visited is usually a mixed or ambivalent joy. ... The visitor can always go home; the visitee is already home, trapped like a rat in a drainpipe.

If a quick glance back over world history shows us anything, it shows us that war was one of our most universal joys from our earliest beginnings, savored at every possible opportunity and even some quite incomprehensible ones.