The only true non-conformists are in the asylums; the only radically free spirits are in the death house awaiting the chair. We live by patterns.

I think it's a bit like coming to the end of a book. The plot's in its thickest, all the characters are in a mess, but you can see that there aren't fifty pages left, and you know that the finish can't be far off.

The Talmud: Heart's Blood of the Jewish Faith.

Income tax returns are the most imaginative fiction being written today.

The American people are not cowardly. But, living in prosperous isolation, they have been the spoiled children of modern history.

Let us fill a cup and drink to that most noble, ridiculous, laughable, sublime figure in our lives... The Young Man Who Was. Let us drink to his dreams, for they were rainbow-colored; to his appetites, for they were strong; to his blunders, for they were huge; to his pains for they were sharp; to his time for it was brief; and to his end, for it was to become one of us.

This is an excellent martini — sort of tastes like it isn't there at all, just a cold cloud.