Of children as of procreation -- the pleasure momentary, the posture ridiculous, the expense damnable

Anyone could write a novel given six weeks, pen paper, and no telephone or wife.

I don't believe that people would ever fall in love or want to be married if they hadn't been told about it. It's like abroad: no one would want to go there if they hadn't been told it existed.

My unhealthy affection for my second daughter has waned. Now I despise all my seven children equally.

Perhaps host and guest is really the happiest relation for father and son.

I know very few young people, but it seems to me that they are all possessed with an almost fatal hunger for permanence.

...its a rather pleasant change when all your life you've had people looking after you, to have someone to look after yourself. Only of course it has to be someone pretty hopeless to need looking after by me.