That Wine Drinking Is More Effete Than

Within This Realm Of Choicelessness, We Do Choose How We Live.

We Do Not Choose To Be Born. We Do Not Choose Our Parents, Or The Country Of Our Birth. We Do Not, Most Of Us, Choose To Die; Nor Do We Choose The Time And Conditions Of Our Death. But Within This Realm Of Choicelessnness, We Do Choose How We Live.

While Reading Writers Of Great Formulatory Power — Henry James, Santayana, Proust — I Find I Can Scarcely Get Through A Page Without Having To Stop To Record Some Lapidary Sentence. Reading Henry James, For Example, I Have Muttered To Myself, "c’mon, Henry, Turn Down The Brilliance A Notch, So I Can Get Some Reading Done." I May Be One Of A Very Small Number Of People Who Have Developed Writer’s Cramp While Reading.

I Should Prefer To Die Laughing, And, On More Than One Occasion, Thought I Might.

Of The Seven Deadly Sins, Only Envy Is No Fun At All.