It isn't surprising that many children consider their parents to be a little dim, and that they sometimes try to update them. The fact that they don't usually try too hard is just as well; a thoroughly updated parent is an unappetizing sight.

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.

travel never made a bore interesting; it only makes for a well-traveled bore, in the same way coffee makes for a wide-awake drunk. In fact, the more a bore travels, the worse he gets. The only advantage in it for his friends and family is that he isn't home as much.

People would have more leisure time if it weren't for all the leisure-time activities that use it up.

I believe that one's basic financial attitudes are - like a tendency toward fat knees - probably formed in utero, or, at the very latest, in cribbo.

the most all-around, practical, long-wearing illusions are the ones that you weave yourself.

forgetting things is what gives old age a bad name, that and old age.