Mala’s Reviews > Siam Miami > Status Update

"Mental illness is social protest." (382)

"Don't get a dirty mouth. I told you f*** is a dirty word because it's all climax. F***! Pouff! It's over. The word for f*** should be longer and more lyrical and gripping and undulating and then boom. Can you think of a word?" (372)

"…You know what happened to Paul Douglas, the movie star? He was touring the South in a play and he attacked the idea of segregated audiences. Robert Frost came down here to read his poetry and didn't make a stink. Douglas became a controversial figure and Frost became our national poet." (283)

The affectionate couple left him dazed. He had the uncomfortable feeling of falling through a hole in his life. There should be a law. Middle-aged couples should never kiss lovingly in public. They can make the most prosperous life look like spilled milk. (238)

Benefit audiences helped the producer and drove the stars nuts. The audience paid such a higher premium for charity tickets that they sat on their hands. Tallulah Bankhead said that you can't thaw a benefit audience out with an acetylene torch. (200)

He was a firm believer that his wife stood behind his success. She gave him extra edge over his competitors because he came to work with her teeth in him. What dejected him was that his competitors had far worse wives. They put Bigger teeth into them. He would sometimes think of a mistress except that Stew set such a bad example for the erotic life. Everywhere there's erotica, but it's only to fill up boredom. (187)

Where Newton elevated man by coming up with first principles that revealed the innards of the universe, Ziggy's discoveries about human nature were sad to contemplate. He would ask himself, What good is experience, if in the final moment it left him abject? Of course,abjectness is one principle of success.The trick is not to fall asleep being abject.To be abject hypocritically—that was the first principle of success.

"Sometimes," Ziggy said, tongue in cheek, "when you accurately describe a system it sounds like you are attacking it." (173)

"You're always upholding tradition? This time the casting couch." (156)

"I envy that kind of personality that can wear corruption like a suntan." (60)