Western civilization was declining too fast for comfort, but too slowly to be very exciting.

almost any object, including this book you hold, can turn up as Exhibit A in a murder trial.

Except in the areas of civil rights and medical marijuana, the legacy of the sixties counterculture has been largely superficial. Still, though the light has dimmed and gone underground, something in me would like to think the sixties phenomenon was a dress rehearsal for a grander, wider leap in consciousness yet to come.

She continued weeping until the heat of her tear water, the sheer velocity of its flow, finally obscured the already vague circumstances of its origins.

Jackson Pollock said once, "I don't really feel that many people in this world are alive." He said, "That's why I like you, Tom. You're alive."

Who knows how to make love stay? Tell love you are going to the Junior's Deli on Flatbush Avenue in Brooklyn to pick up a cheesecake, and if love stays, it can have half.

Success can eliminate as many options as failure.