The real 1960s began on the afternoon of November 22, 1963. It came to seem that Kennedy's murder opened some malign trap door in American culture, and the wild bats flapped out.

Would it be anything like a literary disaster if Gore Vidal were to fall silent? Easy. No. In fact, there is something to be said for the idea.

Over the years, he [Everett Dirksen] developed a style of infinitely subtle fustian, whose effect can still be remotely approximated by sipping twelve-year-old bourbon, straight, while reading Dickens aloud, in a sort of sepulchral purr.

Everywhere you hang your hat is home. Home is the bright cave under the hat.

A day cannot live in infamy without the nourishment of rage. Let's have rage.

A rattlesnake loose in the living room tends to end all discussion of animal rights.

Abstinence is a window of clarity through which one can better find one's work and one's mate.