the sex even in serious pornography has less singularity than the mating of squirrels.

Great advertising is the expression of deep emotional sincerity.

Only one person in a thousand knows the trick of really living in the present. Most of us spend fifty-nine minutes an hour living in the past, with regret for lost joys or shame for things badly done (both utterly useless and weakening) or in a future which we either long for or dread. . . . There is only one minute in which you are alive, this minute, here and now. The only way to live is by accepting each minute as an unrepeatable miracle. Which is exactly what it is-a miracle and unrepeatable.

There is a stage in any misery when the victim begins to find a deep satisfaction in it.

Language is one of the thin walls humanity has built up over centuries against its own bestial and destructive impulses.

Nothing lasts. Not even a great sorrow.

Inevitably, the flood of literary pornography loosed on us is dulling our reactions of surprise or shock. Its writers are forced to raise the ante, to provide stronger and stronger stimulants. Or try to provide them, since both the manner, the naming of parts and the few inexpressive four-letter words, and the matter, are narrowly limited.