“I suppose it's possible that the Sundance Kid didn't like to make much of his birthdays — they may have struck him as just another reminder that his draw was getting slower by the year—but what if he truly liked a major celebration? What if he looked forward every year to marking the day of his birth with what they used to call in the West 'a real wingding, with pink balloons and a few survivors'?”

“When someone reaches middle age, people he knows begin to get put in charge of things, and knowing what he knows about the people who are being put in charge of things scares the hell out of him.”

“understand what Ernest Becker meant when he said something like ‘To live fully is to live with an awareness of the rumble of terror that underlies everything,”

“Paull has his own style, which is folksy, not canned.Religion? He's got one. His prophet's Ayn Rand.By Rand's eerie theories he's fervently gripped,So he won't do flip-flops. He long ago flipped.”

“Going out? Are you going out? He's not going out? What do you mean he's not going out? Are you out here because you're still mad that they moved the Dodgers to L.A.? Are you going out or not? You're not going out? I guess you're not going out — huh? You mean go out parking in the evenings? Are you going out to park? Mr. Tepper, he asked at one point, did you ever — if you were in the middle of an interesting story in the paper or perhaps an interesting conversation with somebody who dropped in to talk to you while you were parking — notice that the meter had run out and therefore go out and put more money in the meter? If we're both keeping an eye out, what does it hurt?”

“Would I be commenting on Amy Fisher?Was that the sort of subject that someone who hoped to become poet laureate should discuss? Would those British laureates who had traditionally written about royal birthdays and royal jubilees have dealt with such goings on?”

“Daddy, how come in Kansas City the bagels taste like just round bread?”