of all the deprivations which afflict humankind, none is more dreadful than loneliness. A corrosive, it eats the heart out. People were meant to live by twos, with someone close with whom to share good and bad, to hear breathing in the dark room at night. Being alone is the one unnatural act.

A country inn is a percolator. News seeps, simmers, and bubbles.

There's no privacy for the violently dead.

Grief is illness. You cannot breathe; you cannot walk or eat or sleep. The sickness is entire, the body and the spirit.

Inspiration is just one requirement for being a writer. Another is keeping regular working hours.

The newer education put stress on culture ... Saturday mornings, the young were brushed and washed, forced into blue cheviot suits, and dragged to children's concerts to learn appreciation. They wriggled, squirmed, counted the light bulbs in the ceiling, dived under seats to gather ticket stubs, stampeded out at intermissions. The weakness of their bladders was astounding.

Each husband gets the infidelity he deserves.