there are times when life surprises one, and anything may happen, even what one had hoped for.

It would appear, from the best examples, that the proper way of beginning a preface to one's work is with a humble apology for having written at all.

The hardest thing for me is the sense of impermanence. All passes; nothing returns.

... in the nineteen-thirties ... the most casual reader of murder mysteries could infallibly detect the villain, as soon as there entered a character who had recently washed his neck and did not commit mayhem on the English language.

Few forms of life are so engaging as birds.

irony is an indispensable ingredient of the critical vision; it is the safest antidote to sentimental decay.

Grandpa says we've got everything to make us happy but happiness.