“…Nefret said with a gusty sigh, ‘Well, that’s done it. We may as well join in, Ramses, family arguments are the favorite form of amusement here and this looks like being a loud one.”

Since I am not as stupid as my children believe I am, I had immediately realized this might be a ruse, but I was not at all averse to a confrontation. In fact, I had been hoping for some such thing.

But the dust! And the clutter! My housewifely and scholarly instincts were equally offended.

I don’t think she realized how much she cared for him, or he for her, until the end. Hasn’t someone said a woman may be known by the men who love her enough to die for her? (If they haven’t, I claim the credit myself.)

That’s maturity-when you realize that you’ve finally arrived at a state of ignorance as profound as your parents.

When emotion supersedes reason … gullibility must follow.

Martyrdom is often the result of excessive gullibility.

Sometimes the characters develop almost without your knowing it. You find them doing things you hadn’t planned on, and then I have to go back to page 42 and fix things. I’m not recommending it as a way to write. It’s very sloppy, but it works for me.

I had refused Emerson’s well-meant offers of assistance, knowing his efforts would be confined to moving the furniture to the wrong places and demanding how much longer the process would take.

I sometimes wonder what it would be like to be the respected patriarch of an ordinary English family.” “Very boring, Emerson.

He hesitated for a moment. Then he said softly, “I love you, Mother.” He took my hand and kissed it, and folded my fingers round the stem of the rose. He had stripped it of its thorns.

It is easier to counterfeit old age than youth.

..he continues to cling to the forlorn hope that I will turn into one of those swooning females…and fling myself squeeling at him whenever anything happens. Like all men, he clings to his illusions.

Exaggeration is the cheapest form of humor.

Is is difficult to be angry with a gentleman who pays you compliments, even impertinent compliments. Especially impertinent compliments.

A lady cannot be blamed if a master criminal takes a fancy to her.

If all else fails, we will simply have to drug our attendants, overpower the guards, raise the oppressed peasants to arms, and take over the government.

I got a job at an amusement park. I like to make the rides more terrifying by throwing a couple of screws onto the seats.

The game of baseball is a clean, straight game, and it summons to its presence everybody who enjoys clean, straight athletics. It furnishes amusement to the thousands and thousands.

I can’t bare you when you’re not amusing.

It is a life which involves effort and is not spent in amusement.

Social media is an amusement park for clinical narcissists.

Let us read, and let us dance; these two amusements will never do any harm to the world.

Ordinary people simply don’t know what books mean to us, shut up here. Reading, learning, and the radio are our amusements.

One cannot have too large a party. A large party secures its own amusement.