What is subversive today, will almost certainly be patriotic tomorrow.

I admire most of all The Renaissance Man, and if it can be said without pretentiousness, I like to think of myself as one, at least in some small measure. Not a Michelangelo, mark you, but perhaps a poor man's Cellini or a road company Cosimo de' Medici ... the Renaissance Man did a number of things, many of them well, a few beautifully. He was no damned specialist.

A gourmet can tell from the flavor whether a woodcock's leg is the one on which the bird is accustomed to roost.

High blood pressure, cheeriness at breakfast, a mellowing political philosophy, and an inability to drink more than half a bottle of proof spirits at cocktail time without falling over the fire irons all suggest dark wings hovering overhead and the impending midnight croak of the raven.

George Jessel’s newest pick-me-up which is receiving attention from the town’s paragraphers is called a Bloody Mary: half tomato juice, half vodka.

What is subversive today, will almost certainly be patriotic tomorrow.

New York... Babylon-on-the-Hudson, sinful, extravagant, full of the nervous hilarity of the doomed.