If you don't have children and you don't have a job, you have time for friendship ... People who have jobs are not the best friends to have. It's better to be friends with people who are unemployed.

Forcing people into a situation where they're supposed to adore each other is probably bad. But letting people get on and off the 6 train without stabbing each other, that's good.

for someone such as myself, who is kind of feckless and immature, it's better to have rich friends than to be rich yourself, because then you have wealth without the responsibility. You get to go to their houses, and you get acquainted with a level of furniture that you cannot provide for yourself. Furniture, I think is the most important attribute of rich people.

There are some short essays that are very grave, and most contemporary novels are lighter than air.

While it is undeniably true that people love a surprise, it is equally true that they are seldom pleased to suddenly and without warning happen upon a series of prunes in what they took to be a normal loin of pork.

Children are much less annoying [than adults] and they never start trends.

Smoking is, as far as I'm concerned, the entire point of being an adult.