God, the bitter misery that reading works into this world! Everybody knows that - everbody who IS everybody. All the best minds have been off reading for years. Look at the swing La Rouchefoucauld took at it. He said that if nobody had ever learned to read, very few people would be in love. Good for you, La Rouchefoucauld; nice going, boy. I wish I’d never learned to read.

The sun's gone dim, and the moon's gone black. For I loved him, and he didn't love back.

The sweeter the apple, the blacker the core. Scratch a lover and find a foe!

I wish, I wish I were a poisonous bacterium.

When your bank account is so overdrawn that it is positively photographic, steps must be taken.

Her big heart did not, as is so sadly often the case, inhabit a big bosom.

Civilization is coming to an end, you understand.