Utility is our national shibboleth: the savior of the American businessman is fact and his uterine half-brother, statistics.

We are uneasy with an affectionate man, for we are positive he wants something of us, particularly our love.

Intellectual sodomy, which comes from the refusal to be simple about plain matters, is as gross and abundant today as sexual perversion and they are nowise different from one another.

Utility is our national shibboleth: the savior of the American businessman is fact and his uterine half-brother, statistics.

So much of our lives is given over to the consideration of our imperfections that there is no time to improve our imaginary virtues. The truth is we only perfect our vices, and man is a worse creature when he dies than he was when he was born.

One cat in a house is a sign of loneliness.

Everything ultimately fails, for we die, and that is either the penultimate failure or our most enigmatical achievement.