“She believed in the principle of enoughness." from "About Alice”

“The most remarkable thing about my mother is that for thirty years she served the family nothing but leftovers. The original meal has never been found.”

“The question about those aromatic advertisements that perfume companies are having stitched into magazines these days is this: under the freedoms guaranteed by the First Amendment, is smelling up the place a constitutionally protected form of expression?”

“Do my ears deceive me, or can I actually hear the sounds of worms turning? You say a turning worm makes no sound? But how about a chorus of turning worms?”

“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.”

“By the way, did you fellows know that a hummingbird weighs as much as a quarter? Do you think a hummingbird also weighs the same as two dimes and a nickel? But then she asked a question of her own: How do they weigh a hummingbird?”

“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?”