One certainty we all accept is the condition of being uncertain and insecure.

The Freudians describe the conscious as a small lit area, all white, and the unconscious as a great dark marsh full of monsters. In their view, the monsters reach up, grab you by the ankles, and try to drag you down.

All one's life as a young woman one is on show, a focus of attention, people notice you. You set yourself up to being noticed and admired. And then, not expecting it, you become middle-aged and anonymous.

Perhaps it is not such a bad marriage after all? There are innumerable marriages where two people, both twisted and wrong in their depths, are well matched, making each other miserable in the way they need, in the way the pattern of their life demands.

I'm sure that everybody feels a kind of permanent anguish about what's going on in the world.

The 1960s was probably the first time in history that young people were recognized as a big group of consumers and as a commercial proposition for Madison Avenue. Advertising played a major role in creating the ethos of that era - the idea that, "Here it is, and you can have it now." I know that many kids thought that the ethos of the 1960s was due to their own peculiar virtues, but, in fact, it had a lot to do with the realities of the marketplace and commerce.

I don't think San Francisco needs defending. I never meet anyone who doesn't love the place, Americans or others.