Not all questions can be answered.

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

The world is full of burled and gnarly knobs on which you can hang a metaphysical system. If you must.

The one thing ... that is truly ugly is the climate of hate and intimidation, created by a noisy few, which makes the decent majority reluctant to air in public their views on anything controversial. ... Where all pretend to be thinking alike, it's likely that no one is thinking at all.

Say what you like about my bloody murderous government,' I says, 'but don't insult me poor bleedin' country.

Among politicians and businessmen, *Pragmatism* is the current term for 'To hell with our children.'

What draws us into the desert is the search for something intimate in the remote.