The first time that she spread her legs for him it had been like opening her jaws for the dentist.

Religion is not merely the opium of the masses, it's the cyanide.

You wonder if God doesn't have an answering machine to screen out the prayers of the venal and the boring? And in which category has he placed you?

From the air, Vatican City looked like a marble Monopoly set. The Church owned all the property from Broadwalk to Illinois Avenue, has three hotels on every lot, and no matter how often it tossed the dice you just knew it would never land on Go to Jail, it would be forever passing Go and collecting $200.

Magic things are fond of deceptions.

I am cheerful. I don't know if I'm happy. There is a difference, you know.

The beet is the most intense of vegetables. The radish, admittedly, is more feverish, but the fire of the radish is a cold fire, the fire of discontent, not of passion. Tomatoes are lusty enough, yet there runs through tomatoes an undercurrent of frivolity. Beets are deadly serious.