... some of the things floating about in the Well of Memory are not worth recording.

gossip, after it reaches a certain point of insult and falsehood, becomes a source of amusement to its victims.

as everybody knows, truthfulness and agreeable manners are often divorced on the ground of incompatibility.

By some mysterious method, Susan Carr's gossip gave the listener a gentler feeling towards his kind. When she spoke of her neighbors' faults, one knew that somehow they were simply virtues gone to seed.

Twenty-five years ago, Christmas was not the burden that it is now; there was less haggling and weighing, less quid pro quo, less fatigue of body, less weariness of soul; and, most of all, there was less loading up with trash.

we middle-aged folk have the education of life, truly; we know the multiplication table of anxieties and sorrows, the subtraction table of loss, the division table of responsibility.

A sneer is like a flame; it may occasionally be curative because it cauterizes, but it leaves a bitter scar.