Family quarrels have a total bitterness unmatched by others. Yet it sometimes happens that they also have a kind of tang, a pleasantness beneath the unpleasantness, based on the tacit understanding that this is not for keeps; that any limb you climb out on will still be there later for you to climb back.

When their children fail to charm others, few parents can stay neutral.

A critic can only review the book he has read, not the one which the writer wrote.

Every creature stalks some other, catches it, and is caught.

Those who are brutally honest are seldom so with themselves.

A first-rate marriage is like a first-rate hotel: expensive, but worth it.

Puritans will never believe it, but life is full of disagreeable things that aren't even good for you.