Death is terrible, but still more terrible is the feeling that you might live for ever and never die. - Anton Chekhov

While you’re playing cards with a regular guy or having a bite to eat with him, he seems a peaceable, good-humoured and not entirely dense person. But just begin a conversation with him about something inedible, politics or science, for instance, and he ends up in a deadend or starts in on such an obtuse and base philosophy that you can only wave your hand and leave.

Of course politics is an interesting and engrossing thing. It offers no immutable laws, nearly always prevaricates, but as far as blather and sharpening the mind go, it provides inexhaustible material.

Good breeding doesn't mean that you won't spill sauce on the tablecloth, but that you won't notice when someone else does.