Rain is my lover, my apple strudel. / It haunts my heels like a pedigreed poodle. / Beyond the seas or across the nation, / It follows me faithful on every vacation.

Meek-eyed parents hasten down the ramps To greet their offspring, terrible from camps.

Men can't be trusted with pruning shears any more than they can be trusted with the grocery money in a delicatessen . . . They are like boys with new pocket knives who will not stop whittling.

The wonderful thing about saints is that they were human. They lost their tempers, got hungry, scolded God, were egotistical or impatient in their turns, made mistakes and regretted them. Still they went on doggedly blundering toward heaven.

Kindness is a virtue neither modern nor urban. One almost unlearns it in a city. Towns have their own beatitude; they are not unfriendly; they offer a vast and solacing anonymity or an equally vast and solacing gregariousness. But one needs a neighbor on whom to practice compassion.

In Australia, not reading poetry is the national pastime.

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