The American way of stress is comparable to Freud's 'beloved symptom', his name for the cherished neurosis that a patient cultivates like the rarest ….

Recently while browsing in a secondhand bookstore I bought a paperback copy of The Intellectual and the City, but I was unable to read it. When I got….

To me, elitism means a love of excellence and superiority, but America has declared war on both and developed a sick love of the lowest common denomi….

If we define a misanthrope as 'someone who does not suffer fools and likes to see fools suffer,' we have described a person with something to look fo….

"Very" is the most useless word in the English language and can always come out. More than useless, it is treacherous because it invariably weakens w….

There are so many different kinds of people in America, with so many different boiling points, that we don't know how to fight with each other. The s….

The joker in the deck of lesbian fidelity is female vanity: no woman of fifty is going to undress in front of a woman of twenty no matter how much sh….

The witty woman is a tragic figure in American life. Wit destroys eroticism and eroticism destroys wit, so women must choose between taking lovers an….

My object is to live in a place that does not call itself 'the community with a heart.' I want one of those godforsaken towns where all the young peo….

The more immoral we become in big ways, the more puritanical we become in little ways..

A woman must wait for her ovaries to die before she can get her rightful personality back. Post-menstrual is the same as pre-menstrual; I am once aga….

If whisky or salt won't cure it, then to hell with it. I worry about important things..

Men are not very good at loving, but they are experts at admiring and respecting; the woman who goes after their admiration and respect will often co….

People are so busy dreaming the American Dream, fantasizing about what they could be or have a right to be, that they're all asleep at the switch. Co….

Of all the old maid's blessing, the greatest is carte blanche. Spinsterhood is powerful; once a woman is called "that crazy old maid" she can get awa….

Why do I hate people? Who else is there to hate?.

Misanthropes have some admirable if paradoxical virtues. It is no exaggeration to say that we are among the nicest people you are likely to meet. Bec….

God may have loved the common people, but a trip to any shopping mall suggests that He made far too many of them..

If you ever meet someone who cannot understand why solitary confinement is considered punishment, you have met a misanthrope..

I wasn't used to children and they were getting on my nerves. Worse, it appeared that I was a child, too. I hadn't known that before; I thought I was….

No matter which sex I went to bed with, I never smoked on the street.