love of truth, ordinary common truth recognizable to everyone, is the ruling passion of the novel.

The happy ending is our national belief.

From what I have seen, I am driven to the conclusion that religion is only good for good people.

The labor of keeping house is labor in its most naked state, for labor is toil that never finishes, toil that has to be begun again the moment it is completed, toil that is destroyed and consumed by the life process

... in America ... children are instructed in the virtues of the system they live under, as though history had achieved a happy ending in American civics.

The exile is a singular, whereas refugees tend to be thought of in the mass ... What is implied in these nuances of social standing is the respect we pay to choice. The exile appears to have made a decision, while the refugee is the very image of helplessness.

In politics, it seems, retreat is honorable if dictated by military considerations and shameful if even suggested for ethical reasons.