When disaster waves, I try not to wave back.

Pain narrows consciousness; pleasure blurs it.

When Medusa looks in the mirror, she sees the Lady of Sorrows.

My passions have never jumped out of the fireplace and set fire to the carpet.

Retirement requires the invention of a new hedonism, not a return to the hedonism of youth

The sewing machine joins what the scissors have cut asunder, plus whatever else comes in its path.

Clothes make a statement. Costumes tell a story.

The laughter of the aphorism is sometimes triumphant, but seldom carefree.

'Be faithful to your roots' is the liberal version of 'Stay in your ghetto.'

Every day begins with an act of courage and hope: getting out of bed.

Totem poles and wooden masks no longer suggest tribal villages but fashionable drawing rooms in New York and Paris.

[T]he Christian is unable to sin and not care ... They may sin, but they cannot do so comfortably and continually. They are very much aware of their wrong actions, and they are very miserable.

Embrace the magical gift of serenity in your daily life. Nothing beats patience, humility, honesty and tranquility.

I alternate between thinking of the planet as home - dear and familiar stone hearth and garden - and as a hard land of exile in which we are all sojourners.

I think that being bullied is a shameful experience.

I've always loved kissing. We all do, don't we?

Sometimes one has the feeling of an almost supernatural character to the shifts and changes in our national mood. They appear beyond the prose of cause and effect.

Merry Christmas, I whisper to myself. Merry Christmas, Nate.

People will say what they want to say, in the way they want to.

I like to serve chocolate cake, because it doesn't show the dirt.

He who boasts of his pedigree praises that which does not belong to him.