My eyes glaze over at a writer solving tiny problems.

Talk uses up ideas. Once I have spoken them aloud, they are lost to me, dissipated into the noisy air like smoke. Only if I bury them, like bulbs, in the rich soil of silence do they grow.

These short stories establish Sontag's originality . . . her unique vision, her success with experiments in the form . . . Sontag makes a wonderful stew of the past, the life caught in memory and imagination, serves it all up lavishly laced with silences, and provides us with a gourmand's series of short courses.

My old friend, water, my good companion, my beloved mother and father: I am its most natural offspring.

My eyes glaze over at a writer solving tiny problems.

Praise requires constant renewal and expansion.

Old age is somewhat like dieting. Every day there is less of us to be observed.