Favorite lines

Best first line of a novel: "They threw me off the hay truck about noon." The Postman Always Rings Twice, James M. Cain

Best last line of a short story: "Art doesn't save anyone from anything" (from memory). "The Moon In Its Flight," Gilbert Sorrentino

Best curtain lines from one of my plays: "What the people expect, they get. What they get, they deserve. Always." "The Stiff," a one-act play, part of The Death Cycle.

Best Norman O. Brown line: "Resisting madness is the maddest way of being mad," Love's Body
(Runner up: "Personality is the original personal property.")

Best family line: "People are more interesting than anybody." My mother.

Best e. e. cummings line: "as long as you and i have arms and lips which are for kissing and to sing with, who cares if some oneeyed sonofabitch invents an instrument to measure spring with"