I'm reading a book about Romaine Brooks, a wonderful painter from early in the last century.

The real literary editors have mostly been fired. Those that remain are all 'bottom line' editors; everything depends on the money.

There is an ecstatic mechanism in birds that makes them fly upwards in spite of worms.

Recipe For Happiness Khaborovsk Or Anyplace' One grand boulevard with trees with one grand cafe in sun with strong black coffee in very small cups. One not necessarily very beautiful man or woman who loves you. One fine day.

If you're too open-minded; your brains will fall out.

I arrived in San Francisco in January 1951. After the Second World War, the population was so uprooted. Soldiers came back home for brief periods and took off again. So the population was very fluid, and suddenly it was as if the continent tilted west. The whole population slid west. It took 10 years for America to coalesce into a new culture. And the new culture happened in San Francisco, not New York.

I'd ban all automobiles from the central part of the city. You see, the automobile was just a passing fad. It's got to go. It's got to go a long way from here.