Permanence of instinct must go with permanence of form...The history of the present must teach us the history of the past.

The common people have no history: persecuted by the present, they cannot think of preserving the memory of the past.

History records the names of royal bastards, but cannot tell us the origin of wheat.

All failed lovers rewrite the script, as if one sexual detail or another might have tipped the balance of pain into destiny, either tragic or miraculous. History record the names of royal bastards, but cannot tell us the origin of wheat.

History celebrates the battlefields whereon we meet our death, but scorns to speak of the plowed fields whereby we thrive. It knows the names of the king's bastards but cannot tell us the origin of wheat. This is the way of human folly.

If there is one vegetable which is God-given, it is the haricot bean.

Let us turn elsewhere, to the wasps and bees, who unquestionably come first in the laying up of a heritage for their offspring.