Perhaps if we saw what was ahead of us, and glimpsed the follies, and misfortunes that would befall us later on, we would all stay in our mother's wombs, and then there would be nobody in the world but a great number of very fat, very irritated women.

There are many difficult things in this world to hide, but a secret is not one of them.

It is one of the peculiar truths of life that people often say things that they know full well are ridiculous.

Goodness! Golly! Good God! Blessed Allah! Zeus and Hera! Mary and Joseph! Nathaniel Hawthorne! Don't touch her! Grab her! Move closer! Run away! Don't move! Kill the snake! Leave it alone! Give it some food! Don't let it bite her! Lure the snake away! Here, snakey! Here, snakey snakey!

If everyone fought fire with fire, the whole world would go up in smoke.

There is no worse sound in the world than someone who cannot play the violin but insists on doing so anyway.

I’m reminded of a book my father used to read me,” she said. “A bunch of elves and things get into a huge war over a piece of jewelry that everybody wants but nobody can wear.