The popular culture says . . . Do what you do, your life is predestined, like the installment plan on your house. There's not much you can do about it. Make your payments, live it, get sick, die, don't make any trouble. It is the Master Charge of destiny. Try to get your high credit rating.

There are many types of participation. One can observe so intensely that one becomes part of the action, but without being an active participant.

I suppress in my prose any language which calls attention to itself.

I am curious about grownups, not children.

You don't die in the United States, you underachieve.

I do not gather things, I prefer to rent them rather than to possess them.

Going around under an umbrella interferes with one's looking up at the sky.