In a free country it is the duty of writers to pay no attention to duty. Only under a dictatorship is literature expected to exhibit an harmonious de… - E.B. White

(Not every doctor can look into a mouse's ear without laughing)

"The sea answers all questions, and always in the same way; for when you read in the papers the interminable discussions and the bickering and the prognostications and the turmoil, the disagreements and the fateful decisions and agreements and the plans and the programs and the threats and the counter threats, then you close your eyes and the sea dispatches one more big roller in the unbroken line since the beginning of the world and it combs and breaks and returns foaming and saying: "So soon?"
E. B. White "On A Florida Key

New York is to the nation what the white church spire is to the village - the visible symbol of aspiration and faith, the white plume saying the way is up