There is nothing like a gleam of humor to reassure you that a fellow human being is ticking inside a strange face.

Laughter is the lightning rod of play, the eroticism of conversation.

The worst losses come at night.

The wonder is what you can make a paradise out of.

The vision of an entire world becoming just like us is at least as discomfiting as the thought that most of it won't.

It may be that just as tonality recurs in music and realism in painting, so the idea of liberalism recurs in politics-though each time in a different vein.

Anger can be borne - it can even be satisfying - if it can gather into words and explode in a storm, or a rapier-sharp attack. But without these means of ventilation, it only turns back inward, building and swirling like a head of stream - building to an impotent, murderous rage.