The most remarkable thing about my mother is that for thirty years she served the family nothing but leftovers. The original meal has never been found.

When it comes to rapacious 19th century capitalism, my family's hands are clean.

Irving Wallace family - they have preservatives.

Many Texas barbecue fanatics have a strong belief in the beneficial properties of accumulated grease.

The talk shows are stuffed full of sufferers who have regained their health--congressmen who suffered through a serious spell of boozing and skirt-chasing, White House aides who were stricken cruelly with overweening ambition, movie stars and baseball players who came down with acute cases of wanting to trash hotel rooms while under the influence of recreational drugs. Most of them have found God, or at least a publisher.

A new regulation for the publishing industry: "The advance for a book must be larger than the check for the lunch at which it was discussed.

When someone reaches middle age, people he knows begin to get put in charge of things, and knowing what he knows about the people who are being put in charge of things scares the hell out of him.