But almost any place is Baghdad if you don't know what will happen in it.

There's no sauce for play like work.

I sat staring up at a shelf in my workroom from which thirty-one books identically dressed in neat dark green leather stared back at me with a sort of cold hostility like children who resent their parents. Don't stare at us like that! they said. Don't blame us if we didn't turn out to be the perfection you expected. We didn't ask to be brought into the world.

Nicknames are fond names. We do not give them to people we dislike.

A closed mind is a dying mind.

Living the past is a dull and lonely business; looking back strains the neck muscles, causing you to bump into people not going your way.

Christmas isn't a season. It's a feeling.