My mother studied English and drama at the University of Pennsylvania, where my father studied architecture. She was a great influence in all sorts of ways, a wicked wit.

The death of God left the angels in a strange position.

The self cannot be escaped, but it can be, with ingenuity and hard work, distracted.

Food ... is the topmost taper on the golden candelabrum of existence.

Faint equivalents can sometimes be found ... . Or it can be rendered obliquely-an adolescent's mental image of his or her parents making love, which must be something on the order of crocodiles mating.

See the moon? It hates us.

We are what we have been told about ourselves. We are the sum of the messages we have received. The true messages. The false messages.