The difference between our decadence and the Russians is that while theirs is brutal, ours is apathetic.

History is replete with proofs, from Cato the Elder to Kennedy the Younger, that if you scratch a statesman you find an actor, but it is becoming harder and harder, in our time, to tell government from show business.

But what is all this fear of and opposition to Oblivion? What is the matter with the soft Darkness, the Dreamless Sleep?

It was Lisa, aged five, whose mother asked her to thank my wife for the peas we had sent them from our garden. 'I thought the peas were awful, I wish you and Mrs. Thurber were dead, and I hate trees,' said Lisa.

You might as well fall flat on your face as lean over too far backward.

If you are a police dog, where's your badge?

A husband should not insult his wife publicly, at parties. He should insult her in the privacy of the home.