When you say something, make sure you have said it. The chances of your having said it are only fair.

One of the most time-consuming things is to have an enemy.

It is quite possible that an animal has spoken to me and that I didn't catch the remark because I wasn't paying attention.

The sea answers all questions, and always in the same way; for when you read in the papers the interminable discussions and the bickering and the prognostications and the turmoil, the disagreements and the fateful decisions and agreements and the plans and the programs and the threats and the counter threats, then you close your eyes and the sea dispatches one more big roller in the unbroken line since the beginning of the world and it combs and breaks and returns foaming and saying: "So soon?" E. B. White "On A Florida Key

If I can fool a bug... I can surely fool a man. People are not as smart as bugs.

In dialogue, make sure that your attributives do not awkwardly interrupt a spoken sentence. Place them where the breath would come naturally in speech-that is, where the speaker would pause for emphasis, or take a breath. The best test for locating an attributive is to speak the sentence aloud.

Democracy is the recurrent suspicion that more than half of the people are right more than half of the time.