“People go their whole lives wanting to be admired for their hidden qualities.”

“I have learned that the libido, like Elvis and jealousy, never dies. I know copulators of eighty-five. Who said you need an erection, a body or an orgasm for sex?”

“Intelligence and effort can be no compensation for ugliness.”

“I dont like being left for long struggling with my dangerous self.”

“The past looks worse the closer you look at it.”

“Old age is the new childhood.”

“Sex can be used either for self-affirmation or for self-transcendence either to intensify the ego and consolidate the social persona by some kind of conspicuous embarkation and heroic conquest, or...”

“He didn't know all that much about how the machinery worked anyway. Such knowledge was for specialists. In war, as in love, he was a fearless, happy-go-lucky adventurer.”

“If she did experience sex--or something close to it--in high school, I'm sure it would have been less out of sexual desire or love than literary curiosity.”