I discovered, though, that once having given a pig an enema, there is no turning back, no chance of resuming one of life's more stereotyped roles. - E.B. White

Surely the Board knows what democracy is. It is the line that forms on the right. It is the don’t in Don’t Shove. It is the hole in the stuffed shirt through which the sawdust slowly trickles; it is the dent in the high hat. Democracy is the recurrent suspicion that more than half the people are right more than half the time. It is the feeling of privacy in the voting booths, the feeling of communion in the libraries, the feeling of vitality everywhere. Democracy is the score at the beginning of the ninth. It is an idea which hasn’t been disproved yet, a song the words of which have not gone bad. It’s the mustard on the hot dog and the cream in the rationed coffee. Democracy is a request from a War Board, in the middle of a morning in the middle of a war, wanting to know what democracy is.

It is not possible to keep abreast of the normal tides of acquisition. A home is like a reservoir equipped with a check valve: the valve permits influx but prevents outflow.

It is quite possible that an animal has spoken to me and that I didn't catch the remark because I wasn't paying attention.