...clatter of a typwriter suggests that you're actually building something.

Cover your glass in France or Germany --even worse, in England - and in the voice of someone who has personally affronted, your host will ask why you're not drinking. 'Oh, I just don't feel like it this morning.' 'Why not?' 'I guess I'm not in the mood?' 'Well, this'll put you in the mood. Here. Drink up.' 'No, really, I'm OK.' 'Just taste it.' 'Actually, I'm sort of...well, I sort of have a problem with it.' 'Then how about half a glass?

In Paris you're always surrounded by French people.

..she took pictures of germs, viruses, and people reacting to germs and viruses. On weekends, for extra money, she photographed weddings, which really wasn't that much of a stretch

In Japanese and Italian, the response to ["How are you?"] is "I'm fine, and you?" In German it's answered with a sigh and a slight pause, followed by "Not so good.

Right, I breast feed baby camels in my backyard just for the freaking fun of it. Just tell me where you live, Pinocchio, and save the baloney for lunch.

People discuss their relationships all the time, but you can't. I don't think people realize how harmful that is, how it twists you up to hide who you are. It's not healthy, and the great gains that homosexuals have made in my lifetime, I think that we'll look back in twenty or thirty years and say, "I can't believe we ever made them go through that."