The essential support and encouragement comes from within, arising out of the mad notion that your society needs to know what only you can tell it.

Appealingness is inversely proportional to attainability.

There was clearly great charm and worth in a sport so quaintly perverse in its basic instructions. Hit down to make the ball rise. Swing easy to make it go far. Finish high to make it go straight.

Perfectionism is the enemy of creation, as extreme self- solitude is the enemy of well- being.

The worst thing in the world is a bitter woman. That's one thing about your mother, she's never been bitter.

In a country this large and a language even larger ... there ought to be a living for somebody who cares and wants to entertain and instruct a reader.

It is not difficult to deceive the first time, for the deceived possesses no antibodies; unvaccinated by suspicion, she overlooks lateness, accepts absurd excuses, permits the flimsiest patching to repair great rents in the quotidian.