Don't forget this, too: Rumors aren't interested in the unsensational story; rumors don't care what's true.

You're nice,' Cushie told him, squeezing his hand. 'And you're my oldest friend.' But they both must have known that you can know someone all your life and never quite be friends.

But I felt certain that if the world would stop indulging wars and famines and other perils, it would be possible for human beings to embarrass each other to death. Our self-destruction might take a little longer that way, but I believe it would be no less complete.

Just when you begin thinking of yourself as memorable, you run into someone who can't even remember having met you

I'm a very old-fashioned novelist. I write 19th-century novels, where a lot of rules apply.

In this world,” Franny once observed, “just as you’re trying to think of yourself as memorable, there is always someone who forgets that that they have met you.

Goodnight you princes of Maine, you kings of New England.