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

And then there were the wallflowers who had recognized for years that the thing was hopeless, who had found in that information a kind of calm. They no longer tried, with a bright and desperate effort, to sustain a conversation with somebody's brother, somebody's usher, somebody's roommate, somebody's roommate's usher's brother... The category of wallflower who had given up on all this was very quiet, not indifferent, only quiet. And she always brought a book.

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.

The whole magic of a plot requires that somebody be impeded from getting something over with.

The radical intelligence in the moderate position is the only place where the center holds. Or so it seems.

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.

My dislike has no consequences. It accrues only in my mind—like preserves on a shelf or guns zeroing in, and never firing.