Which natural gift would you most like to possess? The ability to master other languages (which would have hugely enhanced the scope of these answers). How would you like to die? Fully conscious, and either fighting or reciting (or fooling around). What do you most dislike about your appearance? The way in which it makes former admirers search for neutral words.

She's got no charisma of any kind [but] I can imagine her being mildly useful to a low-rank porn director.

I think the cultural task is to separate our impulses and needs and desires from the supernatural and, above all, from the superstitious.

Allow a friend to believe in a bogus prospectus or a false promise and you cease, after a short while, to be a friend at all.

There are also people who say it's God's curse on me that I should have it near my throat because that was the organ of blasphemy which I used for so many years. I've used many other organs to blaspheme as well if it comes to that.

The one thing that the racist can never manage is anything like discrimination: he is indiscriminate by definition.

The finest fury is the most controlled.