I know from the middle distance I give off the look of being prolific, which is a funny compliment to receive.

By the way, the secret of speaking French is confidence. Whether you are right or wrong, you don't hesitate.

I know how deeply slothful I am.

We know the ideal isn't where the action is.

Culture means, I think, that you have widened your experience enough through reading and through being a little bit thoughtful about these things that it has changed your outlook in some ways. And not necessarily made you a better human being but made you see things.

My wife who is non-Jewish regrets it all the time that I can say these terrible things about fellow Jews and she can't.

Not to like ice cream is to show oneself uninterested in food.

I am the heterosexual Truman Capote.

I know how many days in which I have just answered e-mail, had three phone calls and a two hour lunch. Poof, gone. They are not infrequent.

I think the story is my form.

I am married to someone I love.

Envy is never general, but always very particular - at least envy of the kind one feels strongly.

I know from the middle distance I give off the look of being prolific, which is a funny compliment to receive.

I am basically a complainer and all the grounds for complaint have been swept out from under me.

One of the pleasures of being a Jew, I don't have to tell you, it allows you anti-Semitism.

The pleasure of jogging and running is rather like that of wearing a fur coat in Texas in August: the true joy comes in being able to take the damn thing off.

In recompense, envy may be the subtlest - perhaps I should say the most insidious - of the seven deadly sins.

The decisive moment in the defeat of upper class, capital-S, Society may have come when, in newspapers all over the nation, what used to be call the Society page was replaced by the Style section.

I just know so many people who have six or seven foreign languages and have read everything and have musical training and they are still dorks.

One serious drawback about letters is that, in order to get them, one must send some out. When it comes to the mail, I feel it is better to receive than to give.

I myself think anti-Semitism is about envy.

No one has really ever defined what a friend is.

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.

A cat is the only domestic animal I know who toilet trains itself and does a damned impressive job of it.

The pleasure of jogging and running is rather like that of wearing a fur coat in Texas in August: The true joy comes in being able to take the damn thing off.

The reason 'closure' is a cliche is that it is used too often, too imprecisely, and doesn't in any case reflect reality. In reality, such closure in broken friendships and much else in life is rarely achieved; only death brings closure and then not always for those still living.

Snobbishness is the desire for what divides men and the inability to value what unites them.

I can remember the frustration of not being able to talk. I knew what I wanted to say, but I could not get the words out, so I would just scream.

What I try to do for my readers is to pass on some of the things that I found out about being thirteen after doing it for forty years.

In this watering-place I acted an heroic character, badly studied; and being a novice on such a stage, I forgot my part before a pair of lovely blue eyes.

Young people discovering their sexuality must know they walk with a strong tradition and that they are not alone. They have a right to information without being pressured.

Being a publicist is like management in a lot of ways - you're their friend, you're their mother, you're their confidante.

I mean, all alternative comedy is are comedians that have being doing it for so long, for so long, that they were relaxed enough to start becoming personal on stage.

I became hooked on the idea of being able to shoot an image and process it myself, and end up with a product.

Being a cover artist is not like being a real artist. That's just copying what someone else did.

It is too maddening. I've got to fly off, right now, to some devilish navy yard, three hours in a seasick steamer, and after being heartily sick, I'll have to speak three times, and then I'll be sick coming home. Still, who would not be sick for England?

I don't like being recognised, I have no interest in being famous at all, I just do what I do. If I could be like Captain Kirk and beam myself up and then beam myself down, I would!

I'm glad I'm not Brezhnev. Being the Russian leader in the Kremlin. You never know if someone's tape recording what you say.

Being a musician is what I do, but it's not what I am.

We're all like children. We may think we grow up, but to me, being grown up is death, stopping thinking, trying to find out things, going on learning.

We've had it very clear to the Bosnians that our obligation to equip and train their forces is completely conditional on the foreign forces being gone.

My parents were amazing people who had no business being together - and they knew it.

Teachers started recognizing me and praising me for being smart in science and that made me want to be even smarter in science!

Sure, I get the blues. But what I try to do, is apply joy to the blues, you know? I don't know if it's a technique, or just being bent that way, being raised by the folks I was raised by.

Kind thoughts are rarer than either kind words or deeds. They imply a great deal of thinking about others. This in itself is rare. But they also imply a great deal of thinking about others without the thoughts being criticisms. This is rarer still.

The judge turned his back towards me, sitting back on his judge's chair, while I was in the witness stand being questioned. The whole courtroom was full of these anarchists, leftists, communists and Jewish lobbyists.

For me, being in front of the camera and training go hand in hand.

I define success as being comfortable with yourself and your life. And that is about as good as it gets, really.