Whereas Spiro Agnew criticised "the nattering nabobs of negativism," I prefer to pillory the prattling pipsqueaks of positivism.

Once the Philadelphia Phillies first baseman John Kruk was sitting at a sidewalk beer garden drinking beer and smoking a cigarette in all of his Ruthian obesity.

"And you call yourself an athlete!" sniffed a woman passing by.

"Lady, I'm not an athlete," Kruk came back, "I'm a baseball player."

In a similar mood, it occured to me the other day as I cursed the limitations of my own intellect:

I'm not a thinker, Goddamnit. I'm a writer.

"If you were me, you'd be dead by now." —David Murray*

* Which calls to mind a remark by my old friend Ralph Gaillard, who said in a moment of workplace dismay: "If I was dead, right now I'd be spinning in my grave."