Catholic

Cardinal Edward Egan had "a peaceful death, passing away right after lunch" said Cardinal Timothy Dolan of the man he succeeded.

When the poet Wallace Stevens, a judge for the National Book Awards, saw a picture of the poet Gwendolyn Brooks, a judge the previous year, Stevens said, "there's no possum, no sop, no taters." That's not what Stevens really said, he said something else, something mean spirited but memorable though a definite blot on his reputation. He did use the phrase, 'no possum, no sop, no taters' however, as the title for a poem he wrote, enjoying the sounds of deep south colloquialisms.

The most moving passage in Lenny Bruce's "How to Talk Dirty and Influence People" is when he describes sleeping with his wife, Honey. Not the sex, but the feeling of going to sleep in her arms and waking up in her arms and how much he missed that feeling when she was gone.

My grandmother caught me reading "Naked Lunch." I was 16 years old and she was 77. My grandmother never read the book, though she somehow knew that Burroughs was subversive and that I was much too young to be reading him. She was correct on both counts.

The great event of my life, and why I continue to believe there may be a God, is to wonder why it's so much easier for others to understand me than it is for me to understand myself.

I too hope to die peacefully, right after lunch.