Scratch any father, you find / Someone chock-full of qualms and romantic terrors, / Believing change is a threat.

There is satisfaction in seeing one's household prosper; in being both bountiful and provident.

Children are forced to live very rapidly in order to live at all. They are given only a few years in which to learn hundreds of thousands of things about life and the planet and themselves.

Love or perish" we are told and we tell ourselves. The phrase is true enough so long as we do not interpret it as "Mingle or be a failure.

Who could deny that privacy is a jewel? It has always been the mark of privilege, the distinguishing feature of a truly urbane culture. Out of the cave, the tribal teepee, the pueblo, the community fortress, man emerged to build himself a house of his own with a shelter in it for himself and his diversions. Every age has seen it so. The poor might have to huddle together in cities for need's sake, and the frontiersman cling to his neighbors for the sake of protection. But in each civilization, as it advanced, those who could afford it chose the luxury of a withdrawing-place.

This is the gist of what I know: Give advice and buy a foe.

A bit of trash now and then is good for the severest reader. It provides the necessary roughage in the literary diet.