It might be marvelous to be a man - then I could stop worrying about what's fair to women and just cheerfully assume I was superior, and that they had all been born to iron my shirts. Better still, I could be an Irish man - then I would have all the privileges of being male without giving up the right to be wayward, temperamental and an appealing minority.

Newish friends, if they get ghastly, can be weighed and found wanting, but you'd never do a thing like that to old ones; their terrible habits are just part of the universe.

No nice men are good at getting taxis.

It beats me how Freud could say "What do women want?" as if we all must want the same thing.

Americans, indeed, often seem to be so overwhelmed by their children that they'll do anything for them except stay married to the co-producer.

And what would happen to my illusion that I am a force for order in the home if I wasn't married to the only man north of the Tiber who is even untidier than I am?

A food is not necessarily essential just because your child hates it.