You don’t stop caring, champ. You still care about that little girl whose underpants you saw in kindergarten. Once you care, you always care. That’s … - John Updike

Writers take words seriously — perhaps the last professional class that does — and they struggle to steer their own through the crosswinds of meddling editors and careless typesetters and obtuse and malevolent reviewers into the lap of the ideal reader.

No matter how hard you climb, there are always the rich above you, who got there without effort. Lucky stiffs, holding you down, making you discontent so you buy more of the crap advertised on television.

"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")"