As a youth, I sought out decadence; as an elder, I try to avoid decay.

Stupidity is a fact of life, but unmentionable. The new Prudery.

Sleaze is a point by point refutation of elegance.

No chaos, no creation. Evidence: the kitchen at mealtime.

Guilt stirs me, but only to self-pity.

Totem poles and wooden masks no longer suggest tribal villages but fashionable drawing rooms in New York and Paris.

Journalism never admits that nothing much is happening.