May 18

If a virus could think as we do, it too would imagine itself to be exceptional.

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When, in old age, her last lover died, she declared herself a virgin: untouched by a living hand.

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If a man treads on your toe, tread on his, but first remove your foot from under it.

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Good prose takes the long way round in pursuit of a shortcut to the reader.

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Perhaps only negative perfection is possible. The most luminous success cannot boast the integrity of complete failure.

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Behind every aphoristic assertion there should be the watermark of a question.


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Banter: what oft was thought but ne'er deemed worth expressing.

May 4

Eventually, given its mania for conspiracy theories, the radical right will accuse the polluting industries of a scam to keep environmentalists in work.

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Thanks to modern communications, we can watch a catastrophe unfold, in real time, on the far side of the world. Technology make us hobbled gods, all seeing yet powerless to intervene.

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Virtue belongs to those who resist a talent. You cannot admire the honesty of a lousy liar.

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Truth is the goal but plausibility is the destination.

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There is privilege inherent in complaint; the powerless know that no one is listening.

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Some things must be seen through to be seen.

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Know that you're a fool; but don't treat yourself like one.