Any critic is entitled to wrong judgments, of course. But certain lapses of judgment indicate the radical failure of an entire sensibility.

Jews and homosexuals are the outstanding creative minorities in contemporary urban culture. Creative, that is, in the truest sense: they are creators of sensibilities. The two pioneering forces of modern sensibility are Jewish moral seriousness and homosexual aestheticism and irony.

Enemies are somewhere else, as the fighting is almost always “over there,” with Islamic fundamentalism now replacing Russian and Chinese communism as the implacable, furtive menace. And “terrorist” is a more flexible word than “communist.” It can unify a larger number of quite different struggles and interests. What this may mean is that the war will be endless---since there will always be some terrorism.

I want to live as long as possible, just to see how stupid it gets.

Although none of the rules for becoming more alive is valid, it is healthy to keep on formulating them.

The decline of education in North America and I suppose in Western Europe makes it harder to have a common body of references.

Ours is an age which consciously pursues health, and yet only believes in the reality of sickness.