Men often compete with one another until the day they die. Comradeship consists of rubbing shoulders jocularly with a competitor.

Men greet each other with a sock on the arm, women with a hug, and the hug wears better in the long run.

A writer's work is to witness things.

City people try to buy time as a rule, when they can, whereas country people are prepared to kill time, although both try to cherish in their mind's eye the notion of a better life ahead.

There often seems to be a playfulness to wise people, as if either their equanimity has as its source this playfulness or the playfulness flows from equanimity; and they can persuade other people who are in a state of agitation to calm down and smile.

Sophistication" is another word for that inventive mix of tolerance, resilience, and resourcefulness city people develop.

Suicidal thinking, if serious, can be a kind of death scare, comparable to suffering a heart attack or undergoing a cancer operation. One survives such a phase both warier and chastened. When-ten years ago-I emerged from a bad dip into suicidal speculation, I felt utterly exhausted and yet quite fearless of ordinary dangers, vastly afraid of myself but much less scared of extraneous eventualities.