I think books should have secrets, like people do.

Smaller than a breadbox, bigger than a TV remote, the average book fits into the human hand with a seductive nestling, a kiss of texture, whether of cover cloth, glazed jacket, or flexible paperback.

"Hit it with the back of your left hand" was the first swing thought I ever heard, brusquely bu not unlovingly put to me by the aunt-in-law who had moments before placed a golf club in my virgin grip. I was twenty-five, and had spent my youth in a cloisterd precinct of teh middle class where golf was a rumoured something, like champagne breakfasts and divorce, that the rich did.

Having children is something we think we ought to do because our parents did it, but when it is over the children are just other members of the human race, rather disappointingly.

Russia is the only country of the world you can be homesick for while you're still in it.

To be President of the United States, sir, is to act as advocate for a blind, venomous, and ungrateful client.

Students present themselves...like a succession of CDs whose shimmering surface gives no clue to their contents without the equipment to play them.