The author: an imaginary person who writes real books.

Life is unfair. And it's not fair that life is unfair.

The purpose of love, sex, and marriage is the production and raising of children. But look about you: Most people have no business having children. They are unqualified, either genetically or culturally or both, to reproduce such sorry specimens as themselves. Of all our privileges, the license to breed is the one most grossly abused.

In order to write a book, it is necessary to sit down (or stand up) and write. Therein lies the difficulty.

In social institutions, the whole is always less than the sum of its parts. There will never be a state as good as its people, or a church worthy of its congregation, or a university equal to its faculty and students.

Are people more important than the grizzly bear? Only from the point of view of some people.

Susan Sontag: What she really wanted, throughout her career, was to grow up to be a Frenchman.