Friendship is by its very nature freer of deceit than any other relationship we can know because it is the bond least affected by striving for power, physical pleasure, or material profit, most liberated from any oath of duty or of constancy. With Eros the body stands naked, in friendship our spirit is denuded.

As to why people like Joseph Lelyveld are writing memoirs, I think they're just catching on the coattails of the trend.

The spiritual destiny of Hawaii has been shaped by a Calvinist theory of paternalism enacted by the descendants of the missionaries who had carried it there: a will to do good for unfortunates regardless of what the unfortunates thought about it.

One learns much more by writing fiction, because the insights come from those deeper subconscious levels where the greater and more interesting truths lie.

The choice between starving and being eaten is an exotic one.

Art is both a vengeance against reality and a reconciliation with it.

Only friends will tell you the truths you need to hear to make your life bearable.