Life is full of wonderful passions that come and go over the years, but the only one that will never let you down is reading.

When people start hurling insults at you, you know their minds are closed and there's no point in debating. You disengage yourself as quickly as possible from the situation.

When you're in love, you put up with things that, when you're out of love you cite.

Why bring children into a world where no one writes letters?

The simple idea that everyone needs a reasonable amount of challenging work in his or her life, and also a personal life, complete with noncompetitive leisure, has never really taken hold.

One reason that the task of inventing manners is so difficult is that etiquette is folk custom, and people have emotional ties to the forms of their youth. That is why there is such hostility between generations in times of rapid change; their manners being different, each feels affronted by the other, taking even the most surface choices for challenges.

The etiquette question that troubles so many fastidious people New Year's Day is: How am I ever going to face those people again?