A dying people tolerates the present, rejects the future, and finds its satisfactions in past greatness and half remembered glory

A man who tells secrets or stories must think of who is hearing or reading, for a story has as many versions as it has readers.

Once Charley fell in love with a dachshund, a romance racially unsuitable, physically ridiculous, and mechanically impossible. But all these problems Charley ignored. He loved deeply and tried dogfully.

When I was very young and the urge to be someplace else was on me, I was assured by mature people that maturity would cure this itch. When years described me as mature, the remedy prescribed was middle age. In middle age I was assured that greater age would calm my fever and now that I am fifty-eight perhaps senility will do the job. Nothing has worked. I fear the disease is incurable.

No man really knows about other human beings. The best he can do is to suppose that they are like himself.

It is a time of quiet joy, the sunny morning. When the glittery dew is on the mallow weeds, each leaf holds a jewel which is beautiful if not valuable. This is no time for hurry or for bustle. Thoughts are slow and deep and golden in the morning.

...no gift will ever buy back a man's love when you have removed his self-love.