The great thing about being always among people of noble manners was the inevitable elevation of one's own.

If a man is to lose his fortune, it is a good thing if he were poor before he acquired it, for poverty requires aptitude.

And so, as generally happens, those who have most give least, and those with less somehow make shrift to share.

She was like a butterfly, full of color and vibrancy when she chose to open her wings, yet hardly visible when she closed them.

I was a news reporter for 16 years, seven of them a foreign correspondent in the Middle East, Africa and the Balkans. Perhaps the most useful equipment I acquired in that time is a lack of preciousness about the act of writing. A reporter must write. There must be a story. The 'mot juste' unarriving? Tell that to your desk.

'You've got mail!' exclaims the cheery automaton at America Online. The flag on the mailbox icon waves invitingly on my computer screen. For a second, I'm 10 years old again, waiting for the postman's whistle to slice the stillness of an Australian afternoon.

Jewish prayers are mostly about daily things - the sliver of a new moon, dew on the grass, the bread and the wine.