The degree of a nation's civilization is marked by its disregard for the necessities of existence.

Occasionally I glanced at the big blue cradle of civilization hanging in the sky, remembered for the fiftieth or sixtieth or one hundredth time that none of this had any right to be happening, and reminded myself for the fiftieth or sixtieth or one hundredth time that the only sane response was to continue carrying the tune.

At a dinner party one should eat wisely but not too well, and talk well but not too wisely

We are not the same persons this year as last; nor are those we love. It is a happy chance if we, changing, continue to love a changed person.

She had a pretty gift for quotation, which is a serviceable substitute for wit.

The ability to quote is a serviceable substitute for wit.