The point of a library's existence is not persuasion or evangelism, but knowledge. It is irrelevant to the good library whether, as an institution, it shares or promotes your core values or mine, or the Attorney General's or Saddam Hussein's. The library is always an instrument of choice, and the choice is always yours, not your elected or designated leaders.

Now that rates are moving up, we're seeing more aggressive offerings from banks.

Fishing largely consists of not catching fish; failure is as much a part of the sport as knee injuries are of football.

It was the basilica of gossip, the Vatican of inside dope.

In art there is no progress, only fluctuations of intensity.

On the whole, money does artists much more good than harm. The idea that one benefits from cold water, crusts and debt collectors is now almost extinct, like belief in the reformatory power of flogging.

In America, nostalgia for things is apt to set in before they go.