Marrying for sex is like flying to London for the free peanuts and pretzels. It's not the point of the thing, is it?

There was a price to be paid for being interested in fiction and in writing, pushing my family away. Books and authors became my family.

Vodka is tasteless going down, but it is memorable coming up.

My ancestors were Puritans from England. They arrived here in 1648 in the hope of finding greater restrictions than were permissible under English law at that time.

We live a pleasant life shopping at the Food Shoppe . . . taking the kids to the Weinery-Beanery, . . . and eating bran flakes . .. and then, with no warning, we wake up one morning stricken with middle age, full of loneliness, dumb, in pain. Our work is useless, our vocation is lost, and nobody cares about us at all. This is not bearable. In despair, we go do something spectacularly dumb, like run away with Amber the cocktail waitress, and suddenly all the women in our life look at us with unmitigated disgust.

Even in a time of elephantine vanity and greed, one never has to look far to see the campfires of gentle people.

In romance, as in life, you only learn when you're losing.