Notoriety is cheap. It's just easier to get noticed by doing something bad.

...whenever a woman describes a man as sweet, the dalliance is doomed.

Teachers were both blamed for everything that went wrong with kids and turned to for their every salvation. This dual role of scapegoat and savior was downright messianic but even Jesus was probably paid better.

Now that children don't till your fields or take you in when you're incontinent, there is no sensible reason to have them, and it's amazing that with the advent of effective contraception anyone chooses to reproduce at all.

Funny how you dig yourself into a hole by the teaspoon.

The Web, the great time-killer that had replaced conspicuously passive television with its seductive illusion of productivity.

...You can only subject people to anguish who have a conscience. You can only punish people who have hopes to frustrate or attachments to sever; who worry what you think of them. You can really only punish people who are already a little bit good.