The decisive moment in the defeat of upper class, capital-S, Society may have come when, in newspapers all over the nation, what used to be call the Society page was replaced by the Style section.

I know from the middle distance I give off the look of being prolific, which is a funny compliment to receive.

No one has really ever defined what a friend is.

We who are quotatious are never truly alone, but always hear the cheerful flow of remarks made by dead writers so much more intelligent than we.

The problem for me is that reading is, I won't say a sacred, but nevertheless a pretty serious act.

Many moons ago dictionaries of quotations may have been less needed than they are today. In those good/bad old days, people walked around with entire poems and all the Shakespearean soliloquies in their heads.

I am the heterosexual Truman Capote.