The dog has seldom been successful in pulling man up to its level of sagacity, but man has frequently dragged the dog down to his. - James Thurber

The Duke is lamer than I am old, and I am shorter than he is cold, but it comes to you with some surprise that I am wiser than he is wise.

The sharp edges of old reticences are softened in the autobiographer by the passing of time - a man does not pull the pillow over his head when he wakes in the morning because he suddenly remembers some awful thing that happened to him fifteen or twenty years ago, but the confusions and the panics of last year and the year before are too close for contentment. Until a man can quit talking loudly to himself in order to shout down the memories of blunderings and gropings, he is in no shape for the painstaking examination of distress and the careful ordering of event so necessary to a calm and balanced exposition of what, exactly, was the matter.

It is better to know some of the questions than all of the answers.