“Nearly four decades after it was first published in France... ‘The Second Sex’ remains the most cogent and thorough book of feminist theory yet written.”

“Why isn’t the government doing more? The HUD report was Washington’s answer.”

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“New York heads toward collapse helped im­measurably by a president who apparently feels it is not only good politics but good policy to let the city go down.”

“It will go on, getting worse and worse until whatever losses leaving New York will entail begin to pale by comparison to the kind of life staying here will require you to live.”

"For all their hard work and emergent craft, the Beasties are no longer about making records — today they make culture."

"The Beasties are still bad — they get laid, they do drugs, they break laws, they laze around. But this time they know the difference between bad and evil.”

“There are between 10,000 and 20,000 adolescents on the streets of this city… The most desperate of them eventually land with a thud on the docks, where not even the salt in the air can preserve them.”

“In a rational world there could indeed be a recovery, but it is plain that the country is not under rational control. Its leaders are unable to focus on reality and drift along on illusions.”

“While the name Warhol has come to stand for many things — a masterful artist, a cutting-edge filmmaker, a perceptive social crit­ic — these days in the legal business, it’s come to stand for an estate that’s rife with conflict, confusion, and outright animosity.”