It's unrealistic to live your life within such strict parameters.

But I don't distinguish between being laughed with, and laughed at. I'll take either.

I've wasted a lot of time pretending to be interested in people who weren't terribly interesting.

To spend your days in the company of naked men - that was the life for me. 'Turn a bit to the left, Jean-Claude. I long to capture the playful quality of your buttocks.

Their house had real hardcover books in it, and you often saw them lying open on the sofa, the words still warm from being read.

Hugh returned from his trip, and days later I still sounded like a Red Chinese asking questions about the democratic hinterlands. "And you actually saw people smoking in restaurants? Really! And offices, too? Oh, tell me again about the ashtrays in the hospital waiting room, and don't leave anything out."

Paul Rudnick is a champion of truth (and love and great wicked humor) whom we ignore at our peril.