It is not difficult to deceive the first time, for the deceived possesses no antibodies; unvaccinated by suspicion, she overlooks lateness, accepts absurd excuses, permits the flimsiest patching to repair great rents in the quotidian.

A computer and a cat are somewhat alike - they both purr, and like to be stroked, and spend a lot of the day motionless. They also have secrets they don't necessarily share.

Four years was enough of Harvard. I still had a lot to learn, but had been given the liberating notion that now I could teach myself.

There was clearly great charm and worth in a sport so quaintly perverse in its basic instructions. Hit down to make the ball rise. Swing easy to make it go far. Finish high to make it go straight.

Religion enables us to ignore nothingness and get on with the jobs of life.

There is this quality, in things, of the right way seeming wrong at first.

Hemingway describes literary New York as a bottle full of tapeworms trying to feed on each other.