The fascinating necessarily tends to call a certain attention to itself; the interesting need not. An evening spent with a fascinating person leaves vivid memories; one spent with interesting people has merely a sort of bouquet.

Someone who gossips well has a reputation for being good company or even a wit, never for being a gossip.

Life for most of us is full of steep stairs to go up and later, shaky stairs to totter down; and very early in the history of stairs must have come the invention of bannisters.

The closer and more confidential our relationship with someone, the less we are entitled to ask about what we are not voluntarily told.

Conformity may not always reign in the prosperous bourgeois suburb, but it ultimately always governs.

Today's competitiveness, so much imposed from without, is exhausting, not exhilarating; is unending-a part of one's social life, one's solitude, one's sleep, one's sleeplessness.

The technique of winning is so shoddy, the terms of winning are so ignoble, the tenure of winning is so brief; and the specter of the has-been-a shameful rather than a pitiable sight today-brings a sudden chill even to our sunlit moments.