In New York if you weigh under 200 pounds and decline so much as a cookie at a co-worker's party women will flock to your side assuring you of your appealing physique. This is how skittish we are about the dangers of anorexia and the pressures of body image.

Fiction is a kind of compassion-generating machine that saves us from sloth. Is life kind or cruel? Yes Literature answers. Are people good or bad? You bet says Literature. But unlike other systems of knowing Literature declines to eradicate one truth in favor of another.

Substitute 'damn' every time you're inclined to write 'very' your editor will delete it and the writing will be just as it should be.

There's evidence of a social decline in direct proportion to technology and the industrialization of the motion picture industry.

For much of this decade both Congressional and administration budget projections showed a decline in science and technology accounts of between 20 and 30 percent in real dollars. The real impact to date has been far less severe.

It's kind of ironic that the two sports with the greatest characters boxing and horse racing have both been on the decline. In both cases it's for the lack of a suitable hero.

Reverse every natural instinct and do the opposite of what you are inclined to do and you will probably come very close to having a perfect golf swing.

I do feel like I have always in my life been inclined to be on the outside walk a different path or something. Because of that and increasingly over the years my sense of distance from mainstream society or from the way culture works I have a different kind of perception of it.

One of the sad things about contemporary journalism is that it actually matters very little. The world now is almost inured to the power of journalism. The best journalism would manage to outrage people. And people are less and less inclined to outrage.

Apart from the fact that your physical ability starts to decline I also think someone in their fifties being childlike becomes a little sad. You've got to be careful.