They were adored by the Germans, who thought they were exactly what Englishmen ought to be. They made war look stylish and reasonable, and fun... They were dressed half for battle, half for tennis or croquet.

Dear future generations: Please accept our apologies. We were rolling drunk on petroleum.

Being an American means never having to say you're sorry.

Charm was a scheme for making strangers like and trust a person immediately, no matter what the charmer had in mind.

I paraphrase Aristotle: If you want to be comical, write about people to whom the audience can feel superior; if you want to be tragical, write about at least one person to whom the audience is bound to feel inferior, and no fair having human problems solved by dumb luck or heavenly intervention.

I went to New York to be born again. And when the train plunged into a tunnel under New York City, with its lining of pipes and wires, I was out of the womb and into the birth canal.

Life happens too fast for you ever to think about it. If you could just persuade people of this, but they insist on amassing information.