The decline of the aperitif may well be one of the most depressing phenomena of our time.

Luis Bunuel's two semishort surrealist hand grenades (cowritten in varying degrees with Salvador Dali) make a double bill that can restore your faith in the subversions of youth. Pure Spanish-Parisian piss and vinegar.

Tobacco and alcohol, delicious fathers of abiding friendships and fertile reveries.

A writer or painter cannot change the world. But they can keep an essential margin of nonconformity alive.

I am an atheist, thanks be to God.

Fortunately, somewhere between chance and mystery lies imagination, the only thing that protects our freedom, despite the fact that people keep trying to reduce it or kill it off altogether.

God and Country are an unbeatable team; they break all records for oppression and bloodshed.