I am obsessed with Andy Warhol, so this book fascinated me. Most of the “philosophy” is great, some is a bit boring. Everything is in here from single sentence philosophies to multi-page stream-of-conciousness to chapter-long anecdotes. Easy to digest bits.

I like this passage, on page 152:

When I’m walking around New York I’m always aware of the smells around me: the rubber mats in office buildings; upholstered seats in movie theaters; pizza; Orange Julius; espresso-garlic-oregano; burgers; dry cotton tee-shirts; neighborhood grocery stores; chic grocery stores; the hot dogs and sauerkraut carts; hardware store smell; stationery store smell; souvlaki; the leather and rugs at Dunhill, Mark Cross, Gucci; the Moroccan-tanned leather on the street-racks; new magazines, back-issue magazines; typewriter stores; Chinese import stores (the mildew from the freighter); India import stores; Japanese import stores; record stores; health food stores; soda-fountain drugstores; cut-rate drugstores; barber shops; beauty parlors; delicatessens; lumber yards; the wood chairs and tables in the N.Y. Public Library; the donuts, pretzels, gum, and grape soda in the subways; kitchen appliance departments; photo labs; shoe stores; bicicle stores; the paper and printing inks in Scribner’s, Brentano’s, Doubleday’s, Rizzoli, Marboro, Bookmasters, Barnes & Nobel; shoe-shine stands; grease-batter; hair pomade; the good cheap candy smell in the front of Woolworth’s and the dry goods smell in the back; the horses by the Plaza Hotel; bus and truck exhaust; architects’ blueprints; cumin, fenugreek, soy sauce, cinnamon; fried plantanos; the train tracks in Grand Central Station; the banana smell of dry cleaners; exhausts from apartment house laundry rooms; East Side bars (creams); West Side bars (sweat); newspaper stands; record stores; fruit stands in all the different seasons—strawberry, watermelon, plum, peach, kiwi, cherry, Concord grape, tangerine, murcot, pineapple, apple—and I love the way the smell of each fruit gets into the rough wood of the crates and into the tissue-paper wrappings.

The affectless gaze, the diffracted grace, the bored languor, the wasted pallor, the chic freakiness, the basically passive astonishment, the enthralling secret knowledge, the chintzy joy, the revelatory tropisms, the chalky, puckish mask, the slightly Slavic look, the childlike, gum-chewing naivete, the glamour rooted in despair, the self-admiring carelessness, the perfected otherness, the wispiness, the shadowy, voyeuristic, vaguely sinister aura, the pale, soft-spoken magical presence, the skin and bones, the albino-chalk skin, parchment-like, reptilian, almost blue, the knobby knees, the roadmap of scars, the long bony arms, so white they look bleached, the arresting hands, the pinhead eyes, the banana ears, the graying lips, the shaggy silver-white hair, soft and metallic, the cords of the neck standing out around the big Adam’s apple, it’s all there, nothing is missing, I’m everything my scrapbook says I am.