fact, after a few requisite pleasantries, the most accomplished of hostesses could signal the transition with a single word of her choosing.

when one is homesick what one will find most comforting to recall are those lighthearted little stories that have been told a thousand times before.

perhaps a mirror will suddenly serve its truer purpose—revealing to a man not who he imagines himself to be, but who he has become.

the author provided a most convincing argument that when one is at another’s mercy one should plead for one’s life. Or remain proud and unbent.

It was the symphony or silence.

Always to shine, to shine everywhere, to the very depths of the last days

But imagining what might happen if one’s circumstances were different was the only sure route to madness.

But perhaps this was to be expected. After all, exile was the punishment that God meted out to Adam

perhaps even essential to the institution.