Wit and playfulness represent a desperately serious transcendence of evil. Humor is both a form of wisdom and a means of survival.

In Seattle, I soon found that my radical ideas and aesthetic explorations - ideas and explorations that in Richmond, Virginia, might have gotten me stoned to death with hush puppies - were not only accepted but occasionally applauded.

She needed help, but God was in a meeting whenever she rang.

Those who shun the whimsy of things will experience rigor mortis before death.

Life's an offensive proposition from beginning to end. Maybe those who can't tolerate offense ought to just go ahead and end it all, and maybe those who demand financial compensation for offense ought to have it ended for them.

You're better equipped for this world than I am," she said. "I'm always trying to change the world. You know how to live in it.

Love easily confuses us because it is always in flux between illusion and substance, between memory and wish, between contentment and need.