Archer had always been inclined to think that chance and circumstance played a small part in shaping people's lots compared with their innate tendency to have things happen to them.

When people ask for time, it's always for time to say no. Yes has one more letter in it, but it doesn't take half as long to say.

The real marriage of true minds is for any two people to possess a sense of humor or irony pitched in exactly the same key, so that their joint glances on any subject cross like interarching searchlights.

The American landscape has no foreground and the American mind no background.

Life is the saddest thing there is, next to death.

I'm not much interested in travelling scholarships for women - or in fact in scholarships, tout court! - they'd much better stay at home and mind the baby. Still less am I interested in scholarships for female Yids.

Life is the only real counselor; wisdom unfiltered through personal experience does not become a part of the moral tissue.