Wickedness was like food: once you got started it was hard to stop; the gut expanded to take in more and more. - John Updike

One out of three hundred and twelve Americans is a bore, for instance, and a healthy male adult bore consumes each year one and a half times his own weight in other people's patience.

...there ought to be a law that we change identities and families every ten years or so.

"This got him to the door. There, ridiculously, he turned. It was only at the door, he decided in retrospect, that her conduct was quite in excusable: not only did she stand unncessarily close, but, by shifting the weight of her body to one leg and leaning her head sidewise, she lowered her height several inches, placing him in a dominating position exactly suited to the broad, passive shadows she must have known were on her face." (“Snowing in Greenwich Village")"