It has been noticed that people who are not parents often have a peculiar fondness for children. This is sometimes attributed to a very beautiful nostalgia for a gift denied to them - dream-children, flowers that have only bloomed in imagination - but we think it is rather because they have not the faintest idea how dreadful children are.

Early poems are a thing it takes years to live down.

It has been noticed that people who are not parents often have a peculiar fondness for children. This is sometimes attributed to a very beautiful nostalgia for a gift denied to them - dream-children, flowers that have only bloomed in imagination - but we think it is rather because they have not the faintest idea how dreadful children are.

But human nature cannot be content on a diet of honey and if there is nothing in one's life that requires pity, one must invent it; for to go through life unpitied would be an unthinkable loss.

If only life were one long crisis, everyone would be perfect.

Christmas, so long looming over everyone's head, finally surged up, buried everyone alive and ebbed away, leaving its victims distinctly cross.

it is rather depressing to think that one will still be oneself when one is dead, but I dare say one won't be so critical then.