I have noticed before that there is a category of acquaintanceship that is not friendship or business or romance, but speculation, fascination.

Well, in fact everybody - everybody - in the entire nation has enough stuff in their life to write about that's interesting that they could write their autobiography. And in the end that's why I find people interesting.

Write every day, just to keep in the habit, and remember that whatever you have written is neither as good nor as bad as you think it is. Just keep going, and tell yourself that you will fix it later.

Giving his lecture for the third time freed Dr. Lionel Gift from paying much attention to it. He had a naturally expressive style of delivery, hones over the years in elementary-econ lecture halls. He knew, without even thinking, to address the middle rows of the hall, but to occasionally "shoot" the listeners in the back corners. He knew how to make eye contact and solicit the attention of those who were thinking of other things.

it still astounds me, after forty years, that there is no good bread between Chicago and San Francisco.

But what truly horsey girls discover in the end is that boyfriends, husbands, children, and careers are the substitute-for horses

Charles Dickens was an avid seeker of names - he read directories and looked for odd names on gravestones.