the metabolism of a consumer society requires it continually to eat and excrete, every day throwing itself away in plastic bags.

As a general rule, fans and idols should always be kept at arm's length, the length of the arm to be proportionate to the degree of sheer idolatry involved. Don't take a Beatle to lunch. Don't wait up to see if the Easter Bunny is real. Just enjoy the egg hunt.

When two people marry they become in the eyes of the law one person, and that one person is the husband.

trying to squash a rumor is like trying to unring a bell.

Rumor and gossip, like sound itself, appear to travel by wave-effect, sheer preposterosity being no barrier.

The real trouble with the doctor image in America is that it has been grayed by the image of the doctor-as-businessman, the doctor-as-bureaucrat, the doctor-as-medical-robot, and the doctor-as-terrified-victim-of-malpractice-suits.

Roughly speaking, the President of the United States knows what his job is. Constitution and custom spell it out, for him as well as for us. His wife has no such luck. The First Lady has no rules; rather each new woman must make her own.