Let me be the first to admit that the naked truth about me is to the naked truth about Salvador Dali as an old ukulele in the attic is to a piano in a tree, and I mean a piano with breasts. Senor Dali has the jump on me from the beginning. He remembers and describes in detail what it was like in the womb. My own earliest memory is of accompanying my father to a polling booth in Columbus, Ohio, where he voted for William McKinley.

A husband should not insult his wife publicly, at parties. He should insult her in the privacy of the home.

The unicorn is a mythical beast.

Well, if I called the wrong number, why did you answer the phone?

I never had a dog that showed a human fear of death. Death, to a dog, is the final unavoidable compulsion, the least ineluctable scent on a fearsome trail, but they like to face it alone, going out into the woods, among the leaves, if there are any leaves when their time comes, enduring without sentimental human distraction the Last Loneliness, which they are wise enough to know cannot be shared by anyone.

I always begin at the left with the opening word of the sentence and read toward the right and I recommend this method.

The pounding of the cylinders increased: ta-pocketa-pocketa-pocketa-pocketa-pocketa.