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.

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.

For a woman there is nothing more erotic than being understood.

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

I would trade many an art-film classic for the final exchange between Redford and Streisand in front of the Plaza.

[On swingers:] They have gone from Puritanism into promiscuity without passing through sensuality.

The big lie perpetrated on Western society is the idea of women’s inferiority, a lie so deeply ingrained in our social behaviour that merely to recognize it is to risk unravelling the entire fabric of civilization.