Brooklyn was like Philadelphia made better by its proximity to Manhattan.

But nothing disturbs the feeling of specialness like the presence of other human beings feeling identically special.

What you discovered about yourself in raising children wasn't always agreeable or attractive.

It took hours to turn the clock back 30 seconds.

Sounded to me like he had a pretty good idea what he was saying," Van replied, with surprisingly little anger. "It's a pity he had to overintellectualize like that. He did such good work, and then he had to go and intellectualize it.

Everything he did was at least partial and often total bullshit” (402).

I'm not too concerned what happens to my books after I'm dead. But I am very concerned by what's going on with the culture of reading and writing nowadays.