How To Live A Long And Happy LifeThe lesson of the master.

From Larissa MacFarquhar's profile of the nonagenarian novelist (and retired white-shoe lawyer) Louis Auchincloss in the Feb. 25 New Yorker:

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"[My late wife] Adele once said to me, 'I thought I was going to meet all these wonderful writers when I married you,'" Auchincloss says. "And I said, 'Who would you like to meet? And she said, 'Well, what about Norman Mailer?' I said, 'You want to meet Norman Mailer? I have an invitation from him, a party in Brooklyn.' 'Oh, let's go,' she said. 'When is it?' 'It's Wednesday,' I said, 'and it starts at midnight.' She said, 'For Pete's sakes, I'm beddy-bye by then.' 'Well, don't ask to meet writers if you want to go beddy-bye,' I said. 'I want to go beddy-bye, too.'"

E-mail Timothy Noah at .

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Timothy Noah is a senior writer at Slate.

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