the time for prizes and competitions at art festivals is over. Competition is too closely tied to values that are alien to the arts.

There follows a little obscenity here, a dash of philosophy there, considerable whining overall, and a modern satirical novel is born.

The motion picture is like journalism in that, more than any of the other arts, it confers celebrity. Not just on people - on acts, and objects, and places, and ways of life. The camera brings a kind of stardom to them all. I therefore doubt that film can ever argue effectively against its own material: that a genuine antiwar film, say, can be made on the basis of even the ugliest battle scenes ... No matter what filmmakers intend, film always argues yes.

The style of flirtation specific to classrooms was of service to the students all their lives.

I took a little celebrational nap.

Things have changed very much, several times, since I grew up, and, like everyone in New York except the intellectuals, I have led several lives and I still lead some of them.

A favorite strategy was the paragraph-terminating: Right? Followed immediately by Wrong. This linear invitation to a mugging was considered a strategy of wit.