For the past several centuries the bonding power of the family dinner table has been one of the few constants, and now it's binding no more. The potency of the media is now stronger than that of the family. The wonder is that families still exist at all, since the forces of modern life mainly all pull people away from a family centered way of life.

The only bookstore I had was the paperback rack at the drugstore.

Part of the trick of being happy is a refusal to allow oneself to become too nostalgic for the heady triumphs of one's youth.

Texas is rich in unredeemed dreams

A bookman’s love of books is a love of books, not merely of the information in them.

Yesterday's gone on down the river and you can't get it back.

WHEN AUGUSTUS CAME OUT on the porch the blue pigs were eating a rattlesnake—not a very big one. It had probably just been crawling around looking for shade when it ran into the pigs. They were having a fine tug-of-war with it, and its rattling days were over.