Folklore is a collection of ridiculous notions held by other people, but not by you and me.

Father's snoring grows to sound increasingly like a vacuum cleaner in heat.

... organized religion, in a dominating business society, can do only one of two things. It can either assure the communicant with uneasy bluster that God Himself likes money -- a theory which convinces nobody -- or it can give him an apologetic, halfhearted invitation to go out and get himself crucified.

the American family is failing in its job of turning out stable human beings. ... It is failing because Americans do not dare to cultivate in themselves those characteristics which would make family life creative and rewarding. To do so, would ruin them financially.

How close beneath the surface, even in the happiest family, is the chronic grievance! I sometimes think that tinderboxes are inert and powder kegs mere talcum compared to the explosive possibilities in the most commoplace domestic situation.

The soup, thin and dark and utterly savorless, tasted as if it had been drained out of the umbrella stand.

Democracy makes many taxing demands on its practitioners, but suspension of the intelligence is not one of them.