“Love easily confuses us because it is always in flux between illusion and substance, between memory and wish, between contentment and need.”

“A person's looking for a simple truth to live by, there it is. CHOICE. To refuse to passively accept what we've been handed by nature or society, but to choose for ourselves. CHOICE. That's the difference between emptiness and substance, between a life actually lived and a wimpy shadow cast on an office wall.”

“There is, however, a similarity between juggling and composing on the typewriter. The trick is, when you spill something, make it look like part of the act.”

“If New Orleans is not fully in the mainstream of culture, neither is it fully in the mainstream of time. Lacking a well-defined present, it lives somewhere between its past and its future, as if uncertain whether to advance or to retreat. Perhaps it is its perpetual ambivalence that is its secret charm. Somewhere between Preservation Hall and the Superdome, between voodoo and cybernetics, New Orleans listens eagerly to the seductive promises of the future but keeps at least one foot firmly planted in its history, and in the end, conforms, like an artist, not to the world but to its own inner being--ever mindful of its personal style.”

“At birth, we emerge from dream soup. At death, we sink back into dream soup. In between soups, there is a crossing of dry land. Life is a portage.”

“Champagne was discovered by a Catholic monk," said Bernard. "Took one swallow and burst out of his cellar yelling, 'I'm drinking stars, I'm drinking stars!' Tequila was invented by a bunch of brooding Indians. Into human sacrifice and pyramids. Somewhere between champagne and tequila is the secret history of Mexico, just as somewhere between beef jerky and Hostess Twinkies is the secret history of America. Or aren't you in the mood for epigrams?”

“When humans were young, they were pushed around in strollers. When they were old, they were pushed around in wheelchairs. In between, they were just pushed around.”