| Wallace Stegner |
| Scrabble® |
| serendipity |
| Sophocles |
| Self-Help, by Lorrie Moore |
| Laurence Sterne |
| Superman, with Christopher Reeve and Marlon Brando—so bad it's good |
| Bessie Smith |
| Wole Soyinka |
| skinny dipping |
| Swimming to Cambodia, by Spalding Gray |
| Singing in the Rain |
| Stone Temple Pilots |
| snooping |
| Samantha Schoech |
| Socrates |
| Shmaltz Brewing Company, makers of He'brew The Chosen Beer |
| Gertrude Stein |
| Nina Simone |
| The Simpsons |
| Paul Simon, bow-tie wearing former senator from Illinois and unsuccessful candidate for the 1988 Democratic presidential nomination |
| Simon & Garfunkel |
| Simple Stories, by Ingo Schulze |
| Tim Sandlin, author of Skipped Parts, Sorrow Floats and Social Blunder |
| Preston Sturges |
| Song of Solomon, by Toni Morrison |
| The Song of Songs |
| The Song of the Lark, by Willa Cather |
| Saturday Night Live—the classics with Bill Murray, John Belushi, Gilda Radner, Dana Carvey, Mike Myers, Eddie Murphy |
| Saturday Night Fever |
| Igor Stravinsky |
| string cheese |
| Muriel Spark, for The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie |
| the smell of sage |
| "Send in the Clowns" |
| Send Me No Flowers, 1964 Norman Jewison film with Doris Day, Rock Hudson, and Tony Randall (funny) |
| Spinal Tap |
| Wallace Stevens |
| Sun magazine |
| The Sun Also Rises, by Ernest Hemingway |
| "Spinning Wheel," by Blood, Sweat & Tears |
| Paul Scott, author of The Raj Quartet (adapted into a very good miniseries, "The Jewel in the Crown") |
| Sunday mornings |
| sipping martinis |
| Gary Soto |
| San Francisco |
| Sentimental Education, by Gustave Flaubert |
| spell-check |
| Alexander Solzhenitsyn |
| Speaking in Tongues, by The Talking Heads |
| sundaes |
| second dates |
| snowstorms |
| "Shelter From the Storm," by Bob Dylan |
| skipping class |
| "A Small Good Thing," by Raymond Carver |
| Something Wild, with Ray Liotta, Jeff Daniels, and Melanie Griffith |
| "Something" by George Harrison |
| Some Came Running, 1958 film directed by Vincente Minnelli with Shirley MacLaine, Frank Sinatra, and Dean Martin |
| "Stickeen," an essay by John Muir |
| The Subterraneans, by Jack Kerouac |
| Camille Saint-Saens |
| Edward Said, for his memoir and works on music, literature, and cultural theory |
| sample sales |
| strong coffee |
| Martin Scorsese |
| Sister Sledge |
| The Spy Who Came in From the Cold, by John le Carré |
| The Spy Who Shagged Me, with Mike Myers |
| Bruce Springsteen |
| Ron Suskind, author of A Hope in the Unseen, a book chronicling the life of Cedric Jennings, from an urban high school in D.C. to Brown University |
| spitballs |
| Second Avenue Deli in New York City |
| Oliver Sacks |
| William Styron, for Darkness Visible about his bouts with depression and for Sophie's Choice |
| Shakespeare |
| Sinatra |
| Alfred Steiglitz |
| Henryk Sienkewicz, author of historical novels likeQuo Vadis and the 16th century Polish trilogy, Fire in the Steppe, The Deluge, and Pan Michael |
| short stories |
| J.D. Salinger |
| sangria |
| Sam Shepard |
| A Streetcar Named Desire |
| subtlety |
| sleep |
