Updike's style is an exquisite blend of Melville and Austen: reading him is like cutting through whale blubber with embroidery scissors.

God may have loved the common people, but a trip to any shopping mall suggests that He made far too many of them.

Kings and queens might do wicked things, but they don't nag. One thing I like about Bloody Mary: she never said a word about lung cancer.

The proliferation of support groups suggests to me that too many Americans are growing up in homes that do not contain a grandmoth.

American couples have gone to such lengths to avoid the interference of in-laws that they have to pay marriage counselors to interfere between them.

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.

Americans worship creativity the way they worship physical beauty - as a way of enjoying elitism without guilt: God did it.