My Favorite Quotes

1. If you can’t say something good about someone, sit right here by me. — Alice Roosevelt Longworth
2. He is a self-made man who worships his creator. — Henry Clapp, Jr. (Describing Horace Greeley)
3. It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife. — Jane Austen (Opening line of Pride and Prejudice.)
4. Sometimes you just have to say fuck’em. — Jonathan Lambert
5. I can either run the country or control Alice, but I can’t do both. — Theodore Roosevelt (answering a critic of his daughter Alice Roosevelt [Longworth])
6. Religion is nothing but wishful thinking. — Self quote
7. In the room the women come and go // Talking of Michelangelo. — T.S. Eliot, “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock”
8. I’m mad as hell, and I’m not going to take it anymore!— Network (1976; Howard Beale [Peter Finch])
9. I’m bigger than you, stronger than you, and I will ALWAYS beat you. — Mommie Dearest (1981; Joan Crawford (Faye Dunaway) addressing Christina Crawford after a swimming race.)
10. But, do I look good? — Less Than Zero (Blair (Jamie Gertz) responding to Clay Easton’s (Andrew McCarthy) comment: Are you happy, Blair? You don t look happy.)
11. Los Angeles is forty suburbs in search of a downtown. — Unknown
12. She’s such a nice girl. She sews her own clothes. — Unknown (Description used to describe a potential blind date; thereafter used to describe an unattractive woman.)
13. For you, such a deal. — Unknown

Some Christmas Thoughts

Things I Like About Christmas:

1. Christmas cookies
2. A general increase of civility during the Christmas season.
3. Luciano Pavarotti’s O Holy Night album. Yes, I have it on vinyl.
4. Snow that falls on Christmas Eve and melts on Christmas Day.
5. Wrapping Christmas presents.
6. Getting pleasantly tipsy at family gatherings
7. Fake Christmas trees that look like they are made out of green toilet bowl brushes.
8. The movie Christmas in Connecticut with Barbara Stanwyck.
9. Hot chocolate spiked with peppermint schnapps.

Things I Hate About Christmas:

1. Christmas sweaters
2. People complaining that the “Happy Holidays” greeting is anti-Christian.
3. Cheesy secular Christmas carols—Rudolph and Frosty should never be sung by anyone older than a preschooler.
4. Shoveling two feet of snow off my driveway.
5. Stores being closed on Christmas day so you can’t go shopping.
6. Family gatherings
7. Real Christmas trees that have pinecones still attached.
8. The movie Christmas in Connecticut with Dyan Cannon. This dog was directed by Arnold Schwarzenegger. [Sorry about the leg Arnold.]
9. Eggnog—a vile beverage that should only be served with fruitcake.

My Favorite Books

Favorite Novels of All Time:

1. Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
2. The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay: A Novel by Michael Chabon
3. Shōgan: A Novel of Japan by James Clavell
4. The Cider House Rules by John Irving
5. Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden
6. Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
7. The World According to Garp by John Irving
8. Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
9. Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant by Anne Tyler
10. Sophie’s Choice by William Styron
11. Interview with the Vampire by Anne Rice
12. The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan
13. Wonder Boys by Michael Chabon

Favorite Nonfiction Books of All Time (In no particular order):

1. Paris to the Moon by Adam Gopnik
2. The Piano Shop on the Left Bank: Discovering a Forgotten Passion in a Paris Atelier by Thad Carhart
3. Nicholas and Alexandra by Robert K. Massie
4. The Gulag Archipelago: 1918-1956 by Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn
5. The Arms of Krupp: The Rise and Fall of the Industrial Dynasty that Armed Germany at War by William Manchester
6. The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich: A History of Nazi Germany by William L. Shirer
7. Inside the Third Reich by Albert Speer
8. The 900 Days: The Siege of Leningrad by Harrison E. Salisbury
9. A Distant Mirror: The Calamitous 14th Century (Paperback) by Barbara W. Tuchman
10. City of the Century: The Epic of Chicago and the Making of America by Donald L. Miller
11. It's Not About the Bike: My Journey Back to Life by Lance Armstrong
12. A Gentle Madness: Bibliophiles, Bibliomanes, and the Eternal Passion for Books by Nicholas A. Basbanes
13. The Professor and the Madman by Simon Winchester

What I Have Been Reading of Late

Good Novels I Have Read Recently:

1. Much Ado About Jessie Kaplan by Paula Marantz Cohen
2. Jane Austen in Scarsdale by Paula Marantz Cohen
3. Everything Changes by Jonathan Tropper
4. Digging to America by Anne Tyler
5. The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky
6. The Book of Joe by Jonathan Tropper
7. Jane Austen in Boca by Paula Marantz Cohen
8. The Master by Colm Toibin
9. Hoot by Carl Hiaasen
10. Pretty Things by Sarra Manning
11. The Other Side of Mulholland by Stephen Randall
12. The Deal by Peter Lefcourt
13. Wounded by Percival Everett

Good Nonfiction Books I Have Read Recently:

1. The Flâneur by Edmund White
2. Hallowed Ground by James McPherson
3. The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid: A Memoir by Bill Bryson
4. The Man Time Forgot: A Tale of Genius, Betrayal, and the Creation of Time Magazine by Isaiah Wilner
5. Washington Schlepped Here by Christopher Buckley
6. Blood and Thunder: An Epic of the American West by Hampton Sides
7. A Corner in the Marais: Memoir of a Paris Neighborhood by Alex Karmel
8. A Pound of Paper: Confessions of a Book Addict by John Baxter
9. We’ll Always Have Paris by John Baxter
10. American Theocracy by Kevin Phillips
11. Reading Lolita in Tehran by Azar Nafisi
12. Never a City So Real: A Walk in Chicago by Alex Kotlowitz
13. Every Book Its Reader by Nicholas Basbanes