Funny how the nature of a normal day is the first memory to fade.

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

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.

You were ambitious - for your life, what it was like when you woke up in the morning, and not for some attainment. Like most people who did not answer a particular calling from an early age, you placed work beside yourself; any occupation would fill up your day but not your heart. I liked that about you. I liked it enormously.

Perhaps I overemphasized the value of keeping busy.... I liked to imagine that I was incapable of doing nothing for afternoons myself, but maybe what disturbed me was that I was capable of it. I feared this was a knack one could get the hang of rather readily, and it was therefore now lurking in my house waiting for me to pick it up like a winter flu.

Secrets bind and separate in strict accordance with who's in them .

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.