“Prohibition may be a disputed theory, but none can say that it doesn't hold water.”

“Some people talk like a fish with a paper asshole; whatever they say just doesn't hold water.”

“To ensure that the self doesn't shrink, to see that it holds on to its volume, memories have to be watered like potted flowers, and the watering calls for regular contact with the witnesses of the past, that is to say, with friends.”

“Friendship is indispensable to man for the proper function of his memory. Remembering our past, carrying it with us always, may be the necessary requirement for maintaining, as they say, the wholeness of the self. To ensure that the self doesn't shrink, to see that it holds on to its volume, memories have to be watered like potted flowers, and the watering calls for regular contact with the witnesses of the past, that is to say, with friends. They are our mirror; our memory; we ask nothing of them but that they polish the mirror from time to time so we can look at ourselves in it.”

“Once, during Prohibition, I was forced to live for days on nothing but food and water.”

“Whoever says that all music is prohibited, let him also claim that the songs of birds are prohibited.”