If Whisky Or Salt Won't

By Sending The Contradictory Message That The Famous Are Just Plain Folks On Mount Olympus, America Has Forged A Relentless Tension Between Loftiness And Accessibility. Stir In The Fact That The Inborn Talent And Intelligence Needed To Achieve Fame Are Immune To Distributive Tinkering By Government Programs And You Have A Definition Of Fame Certain To Produce Envious Rage: Somebody Screwed Democracy.

Updike's Style Is An Exquisite Blend Of Melville And Austen: Reading Him Is Like Cutting Through Whale Blubber With Embroidery Scissors.

Any Hope That America Would Finally Grow Up Vanished With The Rise Of Fundamentalist Christianity. Fundamentalism, With Its Born-again Regression, Its Pink-and-gold Concept Of Heaven, Its Literal-mindedness, Its Rambunctious Good Cheer... Its Anti-intellectualism... Its Puerile Hymns... And Its Faith-healing... Are Made To Order For King Kid America.

I've Always Said That Next To Imperial China, The South Is The Best Place In The World To Be An Old Lady.

During The Feminist Seventies Men Were Caught Between A Rock And A Hard-on; In The Fathering Eighties They Are Caught Between Good Hugs And Bad Hugs.