Humorists are not humorous twenty-four hours a day. In fact, when you get to know them well, they are often not humorous at all. They tend to be hypersensitive, taut, neurotic creatures driven by God know what obscure compulsion to earn their living the hard way.

you have to realize the white-supremacy boys are spoiled children. 'I want my way,' they scream, and like all spoiled children, they advance no justification for it except that it is their way.

the conversation whipped gaily around the table like rags in a high wind.

The great disadvantage of being in a rat race is that it is humiliating. The competitors in a rat race are by definition rodents.

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

Listening to Britons dining out is like watching people play first-class tennis with imaginary balls.

Working with children is the easiest part of educating for democracy, because children are still undefeated and have no stake in being prejudiced.