The satirist shoots to kill while the humorist brings his prey back alive and eventually releases him again for another chance.

He resented such questions as people do who have thought a great deal about them. The superficial and slipshod have ready answers, but those looking this complex life straight in the eye acquire a wealth of perception so composed of delicately balanced contradictions that they dread, or resent, the call to couch any part of it in a bland generalization. The vanity (if not outrage) of trying to cage this dance of atoms in a single definition may give the weariness of age with the cry of youth for answers the appearance of boredom.

The trouble with treating people as equals is that the first thing you know they may be doing the same thing to you.

When I see a paragraph shrinking under my eyes like a strip of bacon in a skillet, I know I'm on the right track.

I am not impressed by the Ivy League establishments. Of course they graduate the best -- it's all they'll take, leaving to others the problem of educating the country. They will give you an education the way the banks will give you money -- provided you can prove to their satisfaction that you don't need it.

Words fashioned with somewhat over precise diction are like shapes turned out by a cookie cutter.

Do you believe in astrology? -I don't even believe in astronomy.