I'd come to believe there was no food more depressing than Danish, a pastry that seemed stale upon arrival

We're into this barrage of pop culture - you know, TV, movies, the Internet. We become creatures that we've made up, made of certain different flotsam from pop culture and certain different personas that are in style.

It’s a very difficult era in which to be a person, just a real, actual person, instead of a collection of personality traits selected from an endless Automat of characters.

Republicans go to Sam’s Club, Democrats go to Costco.

People love talking, and I have never been a huge talker. I carry on an inner monologue, but the words often don't reach my lips.

It was surprising that you could spend hours in the middle of the night pretending things were OK, and know in thirty seconds of daylight that that simply wasn't so.

What a generous thing that is, I realize, for a husband to try to make his wife laugh.