I do believe in reincarnation, but I do not believe there is life before noon.

During the feminist seventies men were caught between a rock and a hard-on; in the fathering eighties they are caught between good hugs and bad hugs.

If you ever meet someone who cannot understand why solitary confinement is considered punishment, you have met a misanthrope.

To me, elitism means a love of excellence and superiority, but America has declared war on both and developed a sick love of the lowest common denominator to make sure no-one becomes too fine for our touted democracy. We are almost at the point of regarding every virtue as elitist.

Each time a mediocre singer performs, he is saying, in effect, "This is good enough for you." The audience, thrust into that familiar American mood of knowing something is wrong but not knowing what it is, unconsciously absorbs the insult and projects it back onto the mediocre performer in the form of inattention, rudeness and noise.

There is nothing wrong with "women's studies" that studying the right women can't cure, but feminist literary scholars have a penchant for dragging the rivers of deserved obscurity for third-rate neurotics.

I've always said that next to Imperial China, the South is the best place in the world to be an old lady.