The singers all loathe the sight of one another, the chorus despises the singers, they both hate the orchestra, and everyone fears the conductor; the staff on one prompt side won't talk to the staff on the opposite prompt side, the dancers are all crazed from hunger in any case.

YOU MUST LEARN THE COMPASSION PROPER TO YOUR TRADE" "And what's that?" "A SHARP EDGE.

There was no himself in himself.

Actors, said Granny, witheringly. As if the world weren't full of enough history without inventing more.

A horse's skull always looks scary, even if someone has put lipstick on it.

In my early teens, I read every bound volume of the magazine Punch. Every writer of any distinction in the English language, and I mean including America and England, at some time wrote for Punch. Jerome K. Jerome, who wrote Three Men In A Boat, I loved. I was very impressed when I read a piece by Mark Twain in Punch, and realized that despite the fact that they were on different continents, Jerome K. Jerome and Mark Twain had the same kind of laconic, laid-back, "The human race is damn stupid, but quite interesting" attitude. They were almost talking with the same voice.

It's a god-eat-god world.