Sophistication" is another word for that inventive mix of tolerance, resilience, and resourcefulness city people develop.

If a person sings quietly to himself on the street people smile with approval; but if he talks it's not alright; they think he's crazy. The singer is presumed to be happy and the talker unhappy.

In order to really enjoy a dog, one doesn't merely try to train him to be semi-human. The point of it is to open oneself to the possibility of becoming partly a dog.

Our loneliness makes us avid column readers these days.

No birdcall is the musical equal of a clarinet blown with panache.

Land of opportunity, land for the huddled masses where would the opportunity have been without the genocide of those Old Guard, bristling Indian tribes?

The novelist screws up his courage in order to invest another two or three years in another attempt to float a boat of original design upon an invented ocean.