If you can imagine a man having a vasectomy without anesthetic to the sound of frantic sitar-playing, you will have some idea of what popular Turkish music is like.

Every atom you possess has almost certainly passed through several stars and been part of millions of organisms on its way to becoming you. We are each so atomically numberous and so vigorously recycled at death that a significant number of our atoms-up to a billion for each of us, it has been suggested-probably once belonged to Shakespeare. A billion more each came from Buddha and Genghis Khan and Beethoven, and any other historical figure you care to name.

Hunters will tell you that a moose is a wily and ferocious forest creature. Nonsense. A moose is a cow drawn by a three-year-old.

Eating in Sweden is really just a series of heartbreaks.

I can't fix the world. If you want to make a difference in life, you have to direct your energies in a focused way.

Every kid I knew had a father with a little stash of men's magazines which the father thought was secret and which the kid knew all about.

A cough so robust that I tapped into two new seams of phlegm.