Instead, I quietly excused myself and went to the bar, to commune with spirits I know how to relate to.

You are a person and then you cease to be a person, and a cadaver takes your place.

I dont fear death so much as I fear its prologues: loneliness, decrepitude, pain, debilitation, depression, senility. After a few years of those, I imagine death presents like a holiday at the beach.

I began thinking about my skeleton, this solid, beautiful thing inside me that I would never see.

The suffix 'naut' comes from the Greek and Latin words for ships and sailing. Astronaut suggests 'a sailor in space.' Chimponaut suggests 'a chimpanzee in sailor pants'.

All the clothes in my closet are Oakland, California, clothes. You can't wear those anywhere else. The barometric pressure drops and then where are you?

Bodily fluids and solids are universally the most disgusting things we as human beings can come upon, but as long as they are inside us, it's part of you.

Sexual desire is a state not unlike hunger.

Many people will find this book disrespectful. There is nothing amusing about being dead, they will say. Ah, but there is.

Gravity disappears again, and we rise up off the floor like spooks from a grave. It's like the Rapture in here every thirty seconds.

The simplest strategy for bouts of noxious flatus is to not care. Or perhaps to take advantage of a gastroenterologist I know: get a dog. (To blame.)

Perfection is attained, not when no more can be added, but when no more can be removed.

I think we all know that quarterbacks, kickers, specialists have certain preferences on footballs. They know a lot more about it than I do. They're a lot more sensitive to it than I am.

Judaism had absolutely nothing to do with my past marriage to Mike [Todd] or my upcoming marriage to Eddie Fisher, both of whom were Jewish. It was something I had wanted to do for a long time.

I think anyone who is a carnivore needs to understand that meat does not originally come in these neat little packages.

Sooner or later, I need to begin to do what any candidate does in a presidential race; I need to begin to win.

Before I can process what’s happening, Deirdre has opened her hands and Linden has taken the ring from her and slipped it onto my finger. “Rhine Ashby,” he says. “My wife.

I don't think I'm going to be priest material.

Christmas won't be Christmas without any presents.

I had no intention of being an actor. I was quite good at it. I was pretty capable at other things but never any good at anything.

There is a mythic view of the South that's symbolized by the film "Gone With The Wind" that looks back fondly at slavery as a time when everything was happily in place - in place for whites.