The Enemy, who wears her mother's usual face and confidential tone, has access; doubtless stares into her writing case and listens on the phone.

Compromise, if not the spice of life, is its solidity. It is what makes nations great and marriages happy

The system - the American one, at least - is a vast and noble experiment. It has been polestar and exemplar for other nations. But from kindergarten until she graduates from college the girl is treated in it exactly like her brothers. She studies the same subjects, becomes proficient at the same sports. Oh, it is a magnificent lore she learns, education for the mind beyond anything Jane Austen or Saint Theresa or even Mrs. Pankhurst ever dreamed. It is truly Utopian. But Utopia was never meant to exist on this disheveled planet.

I'm a middle-bracket person with a middle-bracket spouse / And we live together gaily in a middle-bracket house. / We've a fair-to-middlin' family; we take the middle view; / So we're manna sent from heaven to internal revenue.

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.

The knowingness of little girls, is hidden underneath their curls.

Cocktail parties ... are usually not parties at all but mass ceremonials designed to clear up at one great stroke a wealth of obligations.