“In the long term everyone traffics in foregone conclusions, and in the short term they just get drunk. This is the way it has always been. Some half-assed ambiguity masquerading as mystery is all anybody's really looking for.”

“With my eyes closed, I ask if she knows how this will all turn out."Long-term or short-term?" she asks.Both."Long-term," she says, "we're all going to die. Then our bodies will rot. No surprise there. Short-term, we're going to live happily ever after."Really?"Really," she says. "So don't sweat it.”

“lenders to trade their long-term income streams for short-term cash. Say”

“Maybe every essay automatically is in some way experimental — less an outline traveling toward a foregone conclusion than an unmapped quest that has sprung from the word 'question'.”

“Everywhere you turn you see Americans sacrifice their long-term interests for a short-term reward.”

“And my conclusion is,' he said, 'since I had been in very good terms with Anne, that most parents don't know really their children.”