In youth we take egregious risks because death has no reality for us. Youth goes caparisoned in immortality. It is only in middle age that we are shadowed by the awareness of the transitoriness of life.

Charm is often despised but I can never see why. No one has it who isn't capable of genuinely liking others, at least at the actual moment of meeting and speaking. Charm is always genuine; it may be superficial but it isn't false.

We who write in English are fortunate to have the richest and most versatile language in the world. Respect it.

What was so terrible about grief was not grief itself, but that one got over it.

gossip ... was like any other commodity in the marketplace. You received it only if you had something of value to give.

We live in a society which salves its conscience more by helping the interestingly unfortunate than the dull deserving.

A nation that can't remember its dead will soon cease to be worth dying for.