When I get through tearing a lobster apart, or one of those tender West Coast octopuses, I feel like I had a drink from the fountain of youth.

All information of a spiritual or personal nature will have to come from our father, who art in heaven, and I think he's in New York right now.

When I get through tearing a lobster apart, or one of those tender West Coast octopuses, I feel like I had a drink from the fountain of youth.

The best talk is artless, the talk of people trying to reassure or comfort themselves, women in the sun, grouped around baby carriages, talking about their weeks in the hospital or the way meat has gone up, or men in saloons, talking to combat the loneliness everyone feels.

I have a great deal of experience in justifying myself to myself.

My dad was a cotton buyer and cotton buyers always considered themselves superior to the rest of the world.

He had a habit of remarking to bartenders that he didn't see any sense in mixing whiskey with water since the whiskey was already wet.