Loving someone condemns you to a lifetime of fear. You become painfully conscious of how fragile people are - bundles of brittle bones and vulnerable flesh, breeding grounds for billions of deadly germs and horrible diseases.

The opportunity to lecture had restored my good humor.

Reputations are shaped not by facts but by prejudices.

But the dust! And the clutter! My housewifely and scholarly instincts were equally offended.

The only way to do it is to do it: by writing, writing, writing.

Children, I feel, are as much entitled to privacy as human beings.

I sometimes wonder what it would be like to be the respected patriarch of an ordinary English family." "Very boring, Emerson.