If Two People Are In

Man Is Different From Animals In That He Speculates, A High-risk Activity.

It's Incongruous That The Older We Get, The More Likely We Are To Turn In The Direction Of Religion. Less Vivid And Intense Ourselves, Closer To The Grave, We Begin To Conceive Of Ourselves As Immortal.

There Are Two Kinds Of Writers: Hustlers And Sanctimonious Hustlers.

We New Yorkers See More Death And Violence Than Most Soldiers Do, Grow A Thick Chitin On Our Backs, Grimace Like A Rat And Learn To Do A Disappearing Act. Long Ago We Outgrew The Need To Be Blowhards About Our Masculinity; We Leave That To The Alaskans And Texans, Who Have More Time For It.

Suicidal Thinking, If Serious, Can Be A Kind Of Death Scare, Comparable To Suffering A Heart Attack Or Undergoing A Cancer Operation. One Survives Such A Phase Both Warier And Chastened. When-ten Years Ago-i Emerged From A Bad Dip Into Suicidal Speculation, I Felt Utterly Exhausted And Yet Quite Fearless Of Ordinary Dangers, Vastly Afraid Of Myself But Much Less Scared Of Extraneous Eventualities.