The mammary fixation is the most American of the sex fetishes.

Madness is always fascinating, for it reveals the ungluing we all secretly fear: the mind taking off from the body, the possibility that the magnet that attaches us to a context in the world can lose its grip.

There are very few heroines in literature who have defined their lives morally rather than romantically and likewise but a handful in film.

But one of the attributes of love, like art, is to bring harmony and order out of chaos, to introduce meaning and affect where before there was none, to give rhythmic variations, highs and lows to a landscape that was previously flat.

One of the attributes of love . . . is to bring harmony and order out of chaos.

The Internet is democracy's revenge on democracy.

American eroticism has always been of a different provenance and complexion than the European variety, an enjoyment both furtive and bland that is closer to a blushing cartoon than a sensual celebration.