When you're the only pea in the pod, your parents are likely to get you confused with the Hope diamond.

The French fried potato has become an inescapable horror in almost every public eating place in the country. 'French fries', say the menus, but they are not French fries any longer. They are a furry-textured substance with the taste of plastic wood.

Ireland really is my problem; the breaking point of the huge suppuration which all British and all European society now is

Sending grown-ups up the wall is one of the things adolescence is all about. A few years ago it was done with rock 'n' roll music. Now at least they can do it quietly with a home computer.

The American press has the blues. Too many authorities have assured it that its days are numbered, too many good newspapers are in ruins.

Anything that isn't opposed by about 40 percent of humanity is either an evil business or so unimportant that it simply doesn't matter.

The lobbies of the new hotels and the Pan American Building exhale a chill as from the unopened Pharaonic tombs... And in their marble labyrinths there is an evil presence that hates warmth and sunlight.