Imprudence relies on luck, prudence on method. That gives prudence less edge than it expects.

An illicit love affair seems sweetly old-fashioned in the age of one night stands and orgies.

The nature of language may determine what most people say, but I always speak my own meaning.

Out of power, Marxism can develop critical intelligence; in power, it quickly becomes stupid.

Electricity, water, gas, and steam course through the walls of my building, keeping it alive.

Once I find the right maxim to apply, I feel that I have done all that can be expected of me.

The squabbles of philandering Zeus and shrewish Hera are the Greeks' comment on married life.

Curiosity, easily frightened, takes refuge in puzzles, murder mysteries, and spectator sports.

Early every morning an old woman goes to the market to curse a grocery clerk, who curses back.

The magic of procedure: do this after that and thus before so; then your wish will be granted.

The greater the privilege, the more hidden the arrogance. The Emperor of China need not exist.

Cheap thrill: moral outrage revels in its own innocence and in the guilt of the wicked Others.

The beginning of self-knowledge: recognizing that your motives are the same as other people's.

After I have said what is required by my vanity and my morality, I may find a moment for Truth.

Wisdom has lost repute because it so often applies to a state of affairs that no longer exists.

To learn a vocation, you also have to learn the frauds it practices and the promises it breaks.

A suburb is an attempt to get out of reach of the city without having the city be out of reach.

Radical historians now the tell the story of Thanksgiving from the point of view of the turkey.

A frog in love would not be enchanted to learn that her beloved had turned into Prince Charming.

After rejection - misery, then thoughts of revenge, and finally, oh well, another try elsewhere.

After an argument, silence may mean acceptance or the continuation of resistance by other means.

Self-criticism expands the opportunities for discourse and eliminates the need for an adversary.

Withhold admiration from a narcissist and be disliked. Give it and be treated with indifference.

The language of pornography is abusive, that of romance adoring. Both are addressed to a fetish.

When love ends, we cry out against destiny. When friendship ends, we cry out against our friend.

The past goes right on pulling me apart, though I can scarcely remember the people or the issues.

Errors are more numerous than truths, but fortunately too divided among themselves to take power.

If you call failures experiments, you can put them in your resume and claim them as achievements.

The plastic surgeon's knife slashes at time, which may seem to retreat, but then keeps on coming.

My mind no longer has romantic abysses, but has become shallow, with many little gaps and cracks.

Unconditional love is a lofty ideal, but unconditional hate is a fact well documented by history.

The dignified catastrophes of tragedy bear little resemblance to the slow ruin inflicted by life.

Deconstruction: peering suspiciously at the text, I wait for it to make a slip and betray itself.

Every time I change the way I explain myself to myself, I have to rearrange the story of my life.

Anybody can lead a frivolous life. A frivolous writer, however, must have taste and intelligence.

Since events are not metaphors, the literal-minded have a certain advantage in dealing with them.

General statements omit what we really want to know. Example: some horses run faster than others.

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

The beginning, middle, and end are parodied, reversed, and hidden by modernism, but not abandoned.

Gossip is dying out because fewer and fewer people care to talk about anything besides themselves.

The Lady: a fluty voice, sensible shoes, a melancholy sense of living by rules few still remember.

Rescue someone unwilling to look after himself, and he will cling to you like a dangerous illness.

Between repetition and forgetting, it is a marvel that a new thought ever struggles into existence.

Complainers change their complaints, but they never reduce the amount of time spent in complaining.

To avoid taking responsibility, I become unresponsive but hang on until the other person leaves me.

The sage belongs to the same obsolete repertory as the virtuous maiden and the enlightened monarch.

Old photograph: amid the set poses of her family, a young girl smiles and raises her hand a little.

Emblem: the carapace of the great crowned snail is painted with all the flags of the United Nations.

Children pay little attention to their parents' teachings, but reproduce their characters faithfully

History takes place between the Fall and the Apocalypse, with a narrow escape route called Salvation.

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