the position of women, that sad and well-nigh universal blot on civilizations, was never far from her mind.

It is a common delusion that you make things better by talking about them.

Parents are untamed, excessive, potentially troublesome creatures; charming to be with for a time, in the main they must lead their own lives, independent and self-employed, with companions of their own age and selection.

You point out that war is only a symptom of the whole horrid business of human behavior, and cannot be isolated. And that, even if we abolish war, we shall not abolish hate and greed. So might it have been argued about slave emancipation, that slavery was but one aspect of human disgustingness, and that to abolish it would not end the barbarity that causes it. But did the abolitionists therefore waste their breath? And do we waste ours now in protesting against war?

Never approach a friend's wife or girlfriend with mischief as your goal... unless she's really attractive.

Sleeping in a bed -- it is, apparently, of immense importance. Against those who sleep, from choice or necessity, elsewhere society feels righteously hostile. It is not done. It is disorderly, anarchical.

Nothing, perhaps, is strange, once you have accepted life itself, the great strange business which includes all lesser strangeness.