If I could change the structure of existence I would do it. I could see a better way to live for everybody.

I will not eat oysters. I want my food dead - not sick, not wounded - dead.

My heart says one thing. My head says another. Very hard to get your heart and head together in life.

What is it about death that bothers me? Probably the hours.

God, you Jews are truly exotic." Exotic? She should only know the Greenblatts. Or Mr. and Mrs. Milton Sharpstein, my father's friends. Or for that matter, my cousin Tovah. Exotic? I mean, they're nice, but hardly exotic with their endless bickering over the best way to combat indigestion or how far back to sit from the television set.

Comedy just pokes at problems, rarely confronts them squarely. Drama is like a plate of meat and potatoes, comedy is rather the dessert, a bit like meringue.

I've always believed that thoughtful people don't really take the tabloids seriously. They're basically a form of entertainment. I enjoy them as much as the next New Yorker.