I have made sense of my life by developing an ability to analyze Mainstream American Cultural Artifacts.

The idea of choice is easily debased if one forgets that the aim is to have chosen successfully, not to be endlessly choosing.

A tease is a con. You press a spot because you know that it can be pressed, and while the sucker is feeling the pleasure or the pain resulting from the pressure, you take something from him. ...A flirt doesn't do that. A flirt does a dance within the context of giving pleasure. Referring to this, referring to that. And suddenly, following the references, you find a little surprise. Nothing enormous. Nothing like 'Feed on me.' Nothing like that. Something small with a bow on it. It's a pleasure. A surprise, and a *gift*.

The work of television is to establish false contexts and to chronicle the unraveling of existing contexts; finally, to establish the context of no-context and to chronicle it.

The most powerful men were those who most effectively used the power of adult competence to enforce childish agreements.

What is loved is a hit. What is a hit is loved.

Irony has seeped into the felt of any fedora hat I have ever owned - not out of any wish of mine, but out of necessity. A fedora hat worn by me without the necessary protective irony would eat through my head and kill me.