How can one say, 'No, this isn't a part of life,' since it always is? The contaminant of sex, the redeeming corruption that de-idealizes the species and keeps us everlastingly mindful of the matter we are.

Is an intelligent human being likely to be much more than a large-scale manufacturer of misunderstanding?

A Jewish man with his parents alive is half the time a helpless infant!

I wouldn't mind writing a long book which is going to occupy me for the rest of my life.

I'm an Obama supporter. And if you're an Obama supporter that means you had a hard time during the Bush years.

How easy life is when it's easy, and how hard when it's hard.

That can happen when people die, the argument with them drops away and people so flawed while they were drawing breath that at times they were all but unbearable now assert themselves in the most appealing way, and what was least to your liking the day before yesterday becomes in the limousine behind the hearse a cause not only for sympathetic amusement but for admiration