Women eat while they are talking; men talk while they are eating.

In the distance, the gestures of animals look human, the gestures of human beings bestial.

Laughter, while it lasts, slackens and unbraces the mind, weakens the faculties and causes a kind of remissness and dissolution in all the powers of the soul; and thus it may be looked on as weakness in the composition of human nature. But if we consider the frequent relieves we receive from it and how often it breaks the gloom which is apt to depress the mind and damp our spirits, with transient, unexpected gleams of joy, one would take care not to grow too wise for so great a pleasure of life.

The glance embroiders in joy, knits in pain, and sews in boredom. When indifferent, the eye takes stills, when interested, movies. Laughter is regional: a smile extends over the whole face.

In mixed company women practise a kind of visual shorthand that they later decode in detail in other women's company.

Monkeys are superior to men in this: when a monkey looks into a mirror, he sees a monkey.

The flower in the vase smiles, but no longer laughs.