A hobby a day keeps the doldrums away.

In Australia, not reading poetry is the national pastime.

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.

Of one thing I am certain, the body is not the measure of healing, peace is the measure.

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.

Wherever conversation's flowing, / Why must I feel it falls on me / To keep things going?

Oh, high is the price of parenthood, and daughters may cost you double. You dare not forget, as you thought you could, that youth is a plague and a trouble.