The thing to remember about fathers is, they're men. A girl has to keep it in mind: They are dragon seekers, bent on improbable rescues. Scratch any ….

Praise is warming and desirable. But it is an earned thing. It has to be deserved, like a hug from a child..

Cocktail parties ... are usually not parties at all but mass ceremonials designed to clear up at one great stroke a wealth of obligations..

Scratch any father, you find / Someone chock-full of qualms and romantic terrors, / Believing change is a threat..

Nothing fails like success; nothing is so defeated as yesterday's triumphant Cause..

Oh, high is the price of parenthood, and daughters may cost you double. You dare not forget, as you thought you could, that youth is a plague and a t….

In Australia, not reading poetry is the national pastime..

These are my daughters, I suppose. But where in the world did the children vanish?.

Meek-eyed parents hasten down the ramps To greet their offspring, terrible from camps..

A bookworm in bed with a new novel and a good reading lamp is as much prepared for pleasure as a pretty girl at a college dance..

The saints differ from us in their exuberance, the excess of our human talents. Moderation is not their secret. It is in the wildness of their dreams….

If childhood is still a state, it is now chiefly a state of confusion..

It's this no-nonsense side of women that is pleasant to deal with. They are the real sportsmen..

Not reading poetry amounts to a national pastime here..

How happy is the Optimist / To whom life shows its sunny side / His horse may lose, his ship may list, / But he always sees the funny side..

Aunts are discreet, a little shy / By instinct. They forbear to pry..

Rain is my lover, my apple strudel. / It haunts my heels like a pedigreed poodle. / Beyond the seas or across the nation, / It follows me faithful on….

Sisters are always drying their hair. Locked into rooms, alone, they pose at the mirror, shoulders bare, trying this way and that their hair, or fly ….

The human animal needs a freedom seldom mentioned, freedom from intrusion. He needs a little privacy as much as he wants understanding or vitamins or….

There are books that one needs maturity to enjoy just as there are books an adult can come on too late to savor..

Children from ten to twenty don't want to be understood. Their whole ambition is to feel strange and alien and misinterpreted so that they can live a….