All the learnin' my father paid for was a bit o' birch at one end and an alphabet at the other.

All the learnin' my father paid for was a bit o' birch at one end and an alphabet at the other.

One way of getting an idea of our fellow countrymen's miseries is to go and look at their pleasures

I'm all for bringing back the birch, but only between consenting adults

It was the first smile of my life. Of course, that is a ridiculous thing to say; I had been smiled at often, the big man had smiled at me not a minute since. And yet I say: it was the first smile, because it was the first that ever went straight into me like a needle too thin to be seen.

My father resented that I was paid so much more than he was.