my family, although it keeps its hair, turns gray early - a business asset but a social handicap.

I have always regarded divorce as essentially disagreeable, like castor oil, but necessary.

there is no truly honest autobiography.

because we are always staring at the stars, we learn the shortness of our arms.

I suppose there is something in all of us that harks back to the soil. When you come to think of it, what are picnics but outcroppings of instinct? No one really enjoys them or expects to enjoy them, but with the first warm days some prehistoric instinct takes us out into the woods, to fry potatoes over a strangling wood fire or spend the next week getting grass stains out of our clothes. It must be instinct; every atom of intelligence warns us to stay at home near the refrigerator.

Men were not equal in the effort they made, nor did equal efforts bring equal result. ... Equality of opportunity, yes. Equality of effort and result, no.

It's the safety valve of middle life, and the solace of age.