Every marriage tends to consist of an aristocrat and a peasant. Of a teacher and a learner. - John Updike

There is no pleasing New Englanders, my dear, their soil is all rocks and their hearts are bloodless absolutes.

No soul or locale is too humble to be the site of entertaining
and instructive fiction. Indeed, all other things being equal, the
rich and glamorous are less fertile ground than the poor and
plain, and the dusty corners of the world more interesting than
its glittering, already sufficiently publicized centers.

We take our bearings, daily, from others. To be sane is, to a great extent, to be sociable.