She was a triumph over ugliness, so often more beguiling than real beauty, if only because it contains paradox. In this case, as opposed to the scrupulous method of good taste and scientific grooming, the trick had been worked by exaggerating defects; she'd made them ornamental by admitting them boldly.

I'm sure Proust was a big bore.

I don't mean I'd mind being rich and famous. That's very much on my schedule and someday I'll try to get around to it.

The brain may take advice, but not the heart.

I've never worked for a newspaper. I've had some very bad reviews in newspapers.

Lee Harvey Oswald was boiling over about everything: the American ambassador; the Russians-he was mad at them because they wouldn't let him stay in Moscow. We talked to him for about half an hour, and my Italian friend didn't think the guy was worth filing a story about. Just another paranoid hysteric; the Moscow woods were rampant with those. I never thought about him again, not until many years later. Not until after the assassina­tion when I saw his picture flashed on television.

When God hands you a gift, he also hands you a whip; and the whip is intended for self-flagellation solely.