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The understanding smile of an old wife to her husband is one of the loveliest things in the world.

Booth Tarkington

They were upon their great theme: “When I get to be a man!” Being human, though boys, they considered their present estate too commonplace to be dwelt upon. So, when the old men gather, they say: “When I was a boy!” It really is the land of nowadays that we never discover.
BOOTH TARKINGTON

Boys Land Men
Youth cannot imagine romance apart from youth.
BOOTH TARKINGTON

Imagine Romance Youth
I’m not so sure he’s wrong about automobiles,” he said, “With all their speed forward they may be a step backward for civilization-that is, spiritual civilization … But automobiles have come, and they bring a greater change in our life than most of us expect.
BOOTH TARKINGTON

Change Spiritual War
Take your work seriously but never take yourself seriously and do not take what happens either to yourself or your work seriously.
BOOTH TARKINGTON

Experience Happens Seriousness
I’m not sure he’s wrong about automobiles,” he said. “With all their speed forward they may be a step backward in civilization — that is, in spiritual civilization. It may be that they will not add to the beauty of the world, nor to the life of men’s souls.
BOOTH TARKINGTON

Civilization Men Spiritual
So long as we can lose any happiness, we possess some.
BOOTH TARKINGTON

Happiness Happy Long
Gossip is never fatal until it is denied.
BOOTH TARKINGTON

Denied Gossip never
Boyhood is the longest time in life for a boy. The last term of the school-year is made of decades, not of weeks, and living through them is like waiting for the millennium.
BOOTH TARKINGTON

Boys School Years
The only safe male rebuke to a scornful female is to stay away from her – especially if that is what she desires.
BOOTH TARKINGTON

Desire Females Males Scornful
Gossip’s a nasty thing, but it’s sickly, and if people of good intentions will let it entirely alone, it will die, ninety-nine times out of a hundred.
BOOTH TARKINGTON

Alone Gossip Hundred Intentions People Time
Mothers see the angel in us because the angel is there. If it’s shown to the mother, the son has got an angel to show, hasn’t he? When a son cuts somebody’s throat the mother only sees it’s possible for a misguided angel to act like a devil – and she’s entirely right about that!
BOOTH TARKINGTON

Angel Mother Son
Arguments only confirm people in their own opinions.
BOOTH TARKINGTON

Arguing Opinion People
Men were just like sheep, and nothing was easier than for women to set up as shepherds and pen them up in a field.
BOOTH TARKINGTON

Men Sheep Shepherd
Some day the laws of glamour must be discovered, because they are so important that the world would be wiser now if Sir Isaac Newton had been hit on the head, not by an apple, but by a young lady.
BOOTH TARKINGTON

Apples Important Law
One of the hardest conditions of boyhood is the almost continuous strain put upon the powers of invention by the constant and harassing necessity for explanations for every natural act.
BOOTH TARKINGTON

Boyhood Invention Natural
Whatever does not pretend at all has style enough.
BOOTH TARKINGTON

Enough Personality Style

The understanding smile of an old wife to her husband is one of the loveliest things in the world.

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The understanding smile of an old wife to her husband is one of the loveliest things in the world.

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