A thirteen-year-old is a kaleidoscope of different personalities, if not in most ways a mere figment of her own imagination. At that age, what and who you are depends largely on what book you happen to be reading at the moment.

O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory? Where, indeed. Many a badly stung survivor, faced with the aftermath of some relative's funeral, has ruefully concluded that the victory has been won hands down by a funeral establishment - in disastrously unequal battle.

Things on the whole are much faster in America; people don't 'stand for election', they 'run for office.'

Picking other people's brains is an art worth cultivating.

It is somehow reassuring to discover that the word travel is derived from travail, denoting the pains of childbirth.

The character and mentality of the keepers may be of more importance in understanding prisons than the character and mentality of the kept.

[On the United States:] A nation which does not appreciate that the simple elocution exercise 'Merry Mary married hairy Harry' contains not one but three vowel sounds.