Like many natural beauties, New York is effortlessly photogenic. It has fabulous bones and hardly any bad angles.

Art is by nature promotional, pushing beliefs, broadcasting status, aggrandizing personalities.

Near the end of his life, Henri Matisse's preferred attire was evening wear, by which I mean pajamas.

The Cuban-born Mario Algaze has a Chambian way of collapsing present and past.

We line our lives with beautiful things to create a cushion of stability: the illusion of a cohesive past, the promise of an unclouded future.

The history of astronomy is a history of receding horizons.

The trouble with a baby, for writists, is that they take away your useful melancholy, even the energy to invent some.

Murder is not a suitable topic of conversation for a young lady.

Death cut the strings that gave me life, And handed me to Sorrow, The only kind of middle wife My folks could beg or borrow.

Depression can be the sand that makes the pearl. Most of my best work came out of it.

As one California winemaker said, "We release no wine before the bank tells us that its ready."

All of us ambitious young writers hoped to have a cover story in Esquire, of course. The idea was to write the best, most entertaining article that you can.

Though we often see life troughs as the universe's conspiracy to ruin us, they're actually our own true nature inviting us to lay down our weary heads.

He who keeps his own counsel keeps his affairs in his own hands.