All right. If you insist. I do not sleep with girls. No, no, no, let me be absolutely accurate. I've gone through the motions of s...leeping with girls exactly three times, all of them disastrous. The word for my sex life now is nil. Or as you Americans would say, "plenty of nuttin'."LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Numbers are the product of counting. Quantities are the product of measurement. This means that numbers can conceivably be accurat...e because there is a discontinuity between each integer and the next. Between two and three there is a jump. In the case of quantity, there is no such jump; and because jump is missing in the world of quantity, it is impossible for any quantity to be exact. You can have exactly three tomatoes. You can never have exactly three gallons of water. Always quantity is approximate.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Our Lamaze instructor . . . assured our class . . . that our cervix muscles would become "naturally numb" as they swelled and stre...tched, and deep breathing would turn the final explosions of pain into "manageable discomfort." This descriptions turned out to be as accurate as, say a steward advising passengers aboard the Titanic to prepare for a brisk but bracing swim.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Computers are good at swift, accurate computation and at storing great masses of information. The brain, on the other hand, is not... as efficient a number cruncher and its memory is often highly fallible; a basic inexactness is built into its design. The brain's strong point is its flexibility. It is unsurpassed at making shrewd guesses and at grasping the total meaning of information presented to it.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
In its use of words poetry is just the reverse of science. Very definite thoughts do occur, but not because the words are so chose...n as logically to bar out all possibilities save one. No. But because the manner, the tone of voice, the cadence and rhythm play upon our interests and make them pick out from among an indefinite number of possibilities the precise particular thought which they need. That is why poetical descriptions often seem so much more accurate than prose descriptions. Language logically and scientifically used cannot describe a landscape or a face. To do so would need a prodigious apparatus of names for shades and nuances, for precise particular qualities. These names do not exist, so other means have to be used.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The business of a novelist is, in my opinion, to create characters first and foremost, and then to set them in the snarl of the hu...man currents of his time, so that there results an accurate permanent record of a phase of human history.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
[In response to this question from an interviewer: "U. S. News and World Report described you this way: 'She's intolerant, preachy..., judgmental and overbearing. She's bright, articulate, passionate and kind.' Is that an accurate description?":] It's ... pretty good [ellipsis in original].LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
An accurate charting of the American woman's progress through history might look more like a corkscrew tilted slightly to one side..., its loops inching closer to the line of freedom with the passage of time--but like a mathematical curve approaching infinity, never touching its goal. . . . Each time, the spiral turns her back just short of the finish line.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
As a parent, you can play three important roles in teaching your children about sex. As a model for your child, your own comfort l...evel can instill a sense of confidence and trust that will reinforce his or her healthy curiosity about the world. As an information source, you can make sure that curiosity is satisfied with clear and accurate facts about the body, the sexes, and how babies are made. Finally, as a guide to values, you can guarantee that the messages your child receives about sex are invested with the family values you want to instill.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »