I remember when I switched from Christmas to sex as the secret of happiness.

Cats are intended to teach us that not everything in nature has a function.

Some luck lies in not getting what you thought you wanted but getting what you have.

Humor is not about problems with airline luggage handlers. It's about our lives in America and it's about the ends of our lives and it's about everything that happens after that and everything that happened before.

Nothing you do for children is ever wasted. They seem not to notice us, hovering, averting our eyes, and they seldom offer thanks, but what we do for them is never wasted.

Don't pour the oil directly into my navel, pour it on my sternum and let it run down into my navel, you ignorant peasant.

When you're in your 20s, your 30s, even, you have - at least, I had - vast ambitions, and you sit around mooning about these things, and you're depressed, because you haven't done them. And it takes you a long time to come to the realization that if you can't be John Updike, well, then, you can't.