context of luck

Circumstance is the stage upon which chance plays its part. You can’t throw a seven holding one die.

act and perspective

When a giant goes to kill a fly he uses a chair or floorlamp for a flyswatter—some furniture is bound to get broken.

in retrospect

Many of the paintings now thought of as masterpieces were the B-movies of their day.

first of last things

The first thing we must realize is that our ability to die is a privilege and not a curse.

juggernaut structure

Religion is a superstition with a superstructure.

as one miscast

The catalogue they sent me was so horrid I felt insulted just receiving it. What personal misstep has thrown me into this milieu?

roll-a-bye-baby

If ever life drives you back into a fetal ball, don’t forget in that position it’s easy to roll.

first things

For a starting point, in fact a star, can we agree on the sun as being primary and important?

incomparable

America will always be a special case.

dietary concern

He wondered if wine counted as a fruit in one’s diet?

lack of fidelity

They listened to Billie Holiday recordings on their Bang & Olufsen sound system…they didn’t get it, they never would.

simple creature

Oh my heart, be a sponge that absorbs this world.

strategy ossifying

Strategy is only alive while in action. As soon as it accomplishes its mission it risks becoming structure.

trickle down or full circle

Tax money comes into the government and gets distributed and paid out almost as fast as it was collected, and tax dollars spent go directly into the private sector, to the benefit of those who own businesses or who invest in businesses.

just one drop

Sometimes all it takes is that first felt drop of rain to bring me back to life.

on the day after

After the disaster one finds two kinds of people: those who hide, horde, hunker down and try to defend themselves, and those who walk abroad and begin to rebuild.

in a better world

The liquor stores should sell milk and bread. So a person with a family could stop once instead of twice.

you're welcome to it

As bad as we are to one another as fellow human inhabitants of this world and the more we degrade the planet that sustains us, the more we believe, if our movies are any gauge, that aliens want to take it all from us. To echo the old comic’s gag line “Take my earth, please.”

because we always did it that way

Tradition is cultural tyranny.

bigger than that

A mountain cannot be contained in one mind.

heaven for rent

Tried to buy, but denied, a timeshare in heaven.

professed universe

He was a full professor at the university of himself.

invisible me

Incognito ergo sum.

poor pursuit

The kind of wealth that has not object other than acquiring objects.

peer and me

I would happily submit my article to peer review, but I’m confident you will be unable to find one.

all about me

Admiring yourself until you become mired in the mirror.

part failure

No economic or political system yet devised has been able to transcend the common abuses caused by human avarice and self-interest. The one moving part you can count on to fail is the human being.

desk job

Literature is the history of people at desks explaining what living is like.

not here nor there

In order to taxonomize, one must arrest. One must hold the thing still in time. But the static state is never the case, never the essence.

outskirts

He believed that Belgium was a suburb of Paris.

needed motive

Crises are the engines of the age.

glass half empty

Tip it, but sip it slow.

open and closed

A cage, too, as they say of a tree, is mostly air.

attention deficit

Happily unaffected by at least half the culture.

temporary quarters

When we found him, he was doing chin-ups on the edge of the crater he’d created when he crashed.

uneasy existence

While some seek only comfort others desire to confront nature in a raw state.

dead before death

Nothing sadder than hearing of a wealthy person who died while having lived as though destitute. Only thing worse, a wealthy person who died without giving away a healthy share.

you are what you eat

For some people having a very particular or peculiar diet is their way of getting attention.

distance and time

The problem with a long drive in a car is that by its end your whole life is in question.

brushed by

These days I don’t think that we age so much as we blur.