We are all vainer of our luck than of our merits.

Chili is one of the great peasant foods. It is one of the few contributions America has made to world cuisine. Eaten with corn bread, sweet onion, sour cream, it contains all five of the elements deemed essential by the sages of the Orient: sweet, sour, salty, pungent, and bitter.

The only thing I want is something I can't have; and that is to know if, 100 years from now, people will still buy my books.

I like to walk around Manhattan, catching glimpses of its wild life, the pigeons and cats and girls.

Measure your minds height by the shadow it casts.

All my important decisions are made for me by my subconscious. My frontal lobes are just kidding themselves that they decide anything at all. All they do is think up reasons for the decisions that are already made.

The constant petty behests of life permit few opportunities for major satisfactions, and when one is offered it should be seized.