It is said that dispensing advice is easy. What is difficult is getting anyone to listen to it.

The pejorative term "political correctness" was adapted to express disapproval of the enlargement of etiquette to cover all people, in spite of this being a principle to which all Americans claim to subscribe.

It has always puzzled me, in my business, that people think they have to answer questions, no matter how disagreeable or dangerous, just because they were asked. Of course, we journalists would be out of business if they didn't.

When virtues are pointed out first, flaws seem less insurmountable.

It is, indeed, a trial to maintain the virtue of humility when one can't help being right.

Perhaps the greatest rudenesses of our time come not from the callousness of strangers, but from the solicitousness of intimates who believe that their frank criticisms are always welcome, and who feel free to "be themselves" with those they love, which turns out to mean being their worst selves, while saving their best behavior for strangers.

If written directions alone would suffice, libraries wouldn't need to have the rest of the universities attached.