Why does one never hear of government funding for the preservation and encouragement of comic strips, girlie magazines and TV soap operas? Because these genres still hold the audience they were created to amuse and instruct.

-Updike,John Hoyer
  In the NewYork Review of Books,18 Jul.

To my daughter Leonora without whose never-failing sympathy and encouragement this book would have been finished in half the time.

-Plum
  The Heart of a Goof, dedication.