Recorded history is largely an account of the crimes and disasters committed by banal little men at the levers of imperial machines.

Who needs astrology? The wise man gets by on fortune cookies.

The ready availability of suicide, like sex and alcohol, is one of life's basic consolations.

James Joyce buried himself in his great work. _Finnegan's Wake_ is his monument and his tombstone. A dead end.

The author: an imaginary person who writes real books.

Alaska is our biggest, buggiest, boggiest state. Texas remains our largest unfrozen state. But mountainous Utah, if ironed out flat, would take up more space on a map than either.

The sexual revolution transformed the American West: Now even cowboys can get laid.