People give themselves to you, in their talking, and in other ways, if you are quiet and patient and let them, and not in such a damned rush to give yourself to them you go bat-blind and deaf.

Some men just aren't cut out for paternity. Better they should realize it before and not after they become responsible for a son.

If you make it plain you like people, it's hard for them to resist liking you back.

You couldn't be that good and not know it, somewhere in your secret heart, however much you'd been abused into affecting public humility.

Whether you function as welders or inspectors, the laws of physics are implacable lie-detectors. You may fool men. You will never fool the metal.

You don't pay back your parents. You can't. The debt you owe them gets collected by your children, who hand it down in turn. It's a sort of entailment. Or if you don't have children of the body, it's left as a debt to your common humanity. Or to your God, if you possess or are possessed by one. The family economy evades calculation in the gross planetary product. It's the only deal I know where, when you give more than you get, you aren't bankrupted - but rather, vastly enriched.

An honor is not diminished for being shared.