I don't think it's possible to have a sense of tragedy without having a sense of humor.

It's true that obscenity is a matter of taste and in the eye of the beholder.

I have quite a decent constitution in spite of all my abuse of it and my advanced years. I'm still quite robust.

If someone tells me that I've hurt their feelings I'm still waiting to hear what your point is.

What if I pulled through and the pious faction contentedly claimed that their prayers had been answered? That would somehow be irritating.

How is the United States at once the most conservative and commercial AND the most revolutionary society on Earth?

In one way, traveling has narrowed my mind. What I have discovered is something very ordinary and unexciting, which is that humans are the same everywhere and that the degree of variation between members of our species is very slight. This is of course an encouraging finding; it helps arm you against news programs back home that show seething or abject masses of either fanatical or torpid people. In another way it is a depressing finding; the sorts of things that make people quarrel and make them stupid are the same everywhere.