Take it from somebody who has been around for a million years: When you get right down to it, food is practically the whole story every time.

The Great Depression was going on, so that the station and the streets teemed with homeless people, just as they do today. The newspapers were full of stories of worker layoffs and farm foreclosures and bank failures, just as they are today. All that has changed, in my opinion, is that, thanks to television, we can hide a Great Depression. We may even be hiding a Third World War.

I am eternally grateful for my knack of finding in great books, some of them very funny books, reason enough to feel honored to be alive, no matter what else might be going on.

What made marriage so difficult back then was yet again that instigator of so many other sorts of heartbreak: the oversize brain.

He didn't look like a soldier at all. He looked like a filthy flamingo.

Please — a little less love, and a little more common decency.

The little girls were wearing black party dresses and black party shoes, so strangers would know at once how nice they were.