Money...buys privacy, silence. The less money you have, the noisier it is; the thinner your walls, the closer your neighbors.... The first thing you notice when you step into the house or apartment of a rich person is how quiet it is.

If people don't want to listen to you, what makes you think they want to hear from your sweater?

I woke up at five o'clock in the morning with the whole first paragraph in my head. Now, this just shows what a slothful person I am: I tried to go back to sleep.

They know you can't get people to stop smoking, so they develop a system of informants. That's the whole idea of second-hand smoke, you know. Make second-hand smoke dangerous and turn everybody against smokers. Then they say you can't even smoke in a bar - a bar! - because bartenders have a right to a smoke-free "workspace." Ah, bartenders, those health nuts.

Your responsibility as a parent is not as great as you might imagine. You need not supply the world with the next conqueror of disease or major motion picture star. If your child simply grows up to be someone who does not use the word "collectible" as a noun, you can consider yourself an unqualified success.

I hate, simply, to work. I just hate to work, period. I am profoundly slothful. Practically inert.

Without these tourists, New York would be fantastic. I don't want them to come. Stay home!