Modern literature seduces with insults, riddles, and inside stories.
Beauty is lyrical. Ugliness is elegiac.
Every lover's lament has an element of boasting.
Too timid to talk back, I shot my adversary.
When a man bores a woman, she complains. When a woman bores a man, he ignores her.
The morose one refuses to smile even when he has just had his teeth cleaned.