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A handful of great passages from Joseph Epstein's new book of essays . . . and I'm only about 15% of the way through it:

"[I]n the matter of literary criticism, as Mencken once remarked, it is only justice that hurts."

"[I]f the same progress as had been made in education were made in the culinary arts, we should today still be eating soup with our hands."

"The physicist Wolfgang Pauli used to respond to the inadequate answers of his less than brilliant students by saying, 'That isn't even wrong!'"

"Give something a concept label–ah, attention deficit disorder, ah, mid-life crisis, ah, soccer moms, ah, the Invisible Hand of the Marketplace–ah, how soothing it all is! But it oughtn't to be. Invoke those concepts–and many others–and, poof!, reality leaves the room."

"Sigmund Freud–whose thought Vladimir Nabokov once characterized as no more than private parts covered up by Greek myths . . .".

"Once [my co-worker] Philley telephoned the Fat Man to thank him for a [call girl's] number which proved very satisfactory. 'Hi Fred,' Philley said, 'just calling to thank you for that Doris number. Terrific! Really great! Everything you said she was, and more.' A gravelly voice at the other end responded: 'This is Mrs. Moscowitz.'"

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