Fear . . . is forward. No one is afraid of yesterday.

It is always self-defeating to pretend to the style of a generation younger than your own; it simply erases your own experience in history.

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.

My grandmother refused to concede that any member of the family died of natural causes. An uncle's cancer in middle age occurred because all the suitcases fell off the luggage rack onto him when he was in his teens, and so forth. Death was an acquired characteristic.

My capacity for having a good time exists. It surfaces, however, on odd occasions.

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

Did I throw the most important thing perhaps, by accident, away?