The same fire that hardens the egg will melt the butter; and much depends on the personality type, whether you customarily rise to a challenge or whether you sink. For as long as I can remember, I have been a sinker. One challenge, and I drop like a rock.

I recently adopted for my own a good motto I saw somewhere, on a barroom mirror or possibly a washroom wall: 'The time you enjoyed wasting wasn't wasted.' I think I'll have that printed some day on a T-shirt or the bedroom ceiling.

This is your dividing line, by the way, between child and nonchild - when the first trouble happens that Mama can't fix.

The fact is, the cocktail party has much in its favor. Going to one is a good way of indicating that you're still alive and about, if such is the case, and that you're glad other people are, without having to spend an entire evening proving it.

It is a rare expert who clearly realizes how inexpert someone else can be.

Some people collect paperweights, or pre-Columbian figures, or old masters, or young mistresses, or tombstone rubbings, or five-minute recipes, or any of a thousand other things... My own collection is sunrises; and I find that they have their advantages. Sunrises are usually handsome, they can't possibly be dusted, and they take only a little room, so long as it has a window to see them from.

You may have noticed, as I have, that if ever you find yourself declaring emphatically and unequivocally that you will never do some one particular thing, chances are good that this is precisely what you will one day find yourself doing.