“Hospitality, or flinging wide the door to friends and wayfarers alike, was once important, back in a world without motels or safety nets, where a friend might find his castle burnt down or a wayfarer find bandits on his trail.”

a woman may be called a wife and mother for most of her life, while a man is called a husband and father only at his funeral.

A good-looking piece of scenery anywhere delights the eye and elevates the spirits. Some of us, crude creatures that we are, are merely excited; finer souls draw ethical and spiritual nutrients from the sight.

I was getting sick and tired of being lectured by dear friends with their little bottles of water and their regular visits to the gym. All of a sudden, we’ve got this voluntary prohibition that has to do with health and fitness. I’m not really in favor of health and fitness.

Perhaps it’s a good time to reconsider pleasure at its roots. Changing out of wet shoes and socks, for instance.

There is no ‘cat language.’ Painful as it is for us to admit, they don’t need one!

Sophistication called for a variety of talents and attitudes, but the minimum requirement was being in New York. Not all New Yorkers achieved it, but nobody elsewhere had a prayer.

Visiting is a pleasure; being visited is usually a mixed or ambivalent joy. … The visitor can always go home; the visitee is already home, trapped like a rat in a drainpipe.

Almost any dog thinks almost any human is the Great Spirit, the Primal Creator, and the Universal Force Behind the Sun and Tides. What human can resist?

The one thing we have in common with all other living things is that for nearly four billions years our ancestors have managed to slip through a series of closing doors every time we needed them to.

When the bus driver gets off the bus, who shuts the door?

When you have a memorable story about who you are and what your mission is, your success no longer depends on how experienced you are or how many degrees you have or who you know. A good story transcends boundaries, breaks barriers, and opens doors.

My next door neighbor just had a pacemaker installed. They’re still working the bugs out, though. Every time he makes love, my garage door opens.

If the wolf had ever come to our back door, he’d have had to bring a picnic lunch.

I don’t have wild dogs chasing people with scripts away from my door. I get my share. I’ve done okay. But I usually do independent stuff because that’s mostly what I’m offered.

When you oppress people either by gender, by race, by sexual orientation, when you do that and the doors become ajar, they will fly open and they will come and they have.

My kids hear me behind my door, giggling like an idiot, and they roll their eyes at the blatant indignity of it all.