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.

Still I sojourn here, alone and palely loitering, though the sedge is withered from the lake and no birds sing. For I sent the bath towel to the wash this morning, and omitted to put out another. I have no towel.

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

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

As to the family, I have never understood how that fits in with the other ideals -- or, indeed, why it should be an ideal at all.

Cranks live by theory, not by pure desire. They want votes, peace, nuts, liberty, and spinning-looms not because they love these things, as a child loves jam, but because they think they ought to have them. That is one element which makes the crank.

Why is humanity so excessive in the way it does things? The golden mean seems out of fashion.