But let me say this about learning experiences: they're weird. Or put it this way: what you learn from a learning experience is generally something else.

a celebrity is someone who no longer does the things that made him a celebrity.

One's travel life is basically as incommunicable as his sex life is.

There are worse things than being fat, and one of them is worrying about it all the time.

Like a chastity belt, the package tour keeps you out of mischief but a bit restive for wondering what you missed.

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.

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