It seems that soccer tournaments create those relationships: people gathered together in pubs and living rooms, a whole country suddenly caring about the same event. A World Cup is the sort of common project that otherwise barely exists in modern societies.

I didn't want to be alone, but I had to learn that the dimensions of my feelings are too violent. I had to learn this.

That good disposition which boasts of being most tender is often stifled by the least urging of self-interest.

Here's my Golden Rule for a tarnished age: Be fair with others, but keep after them until they're fair with you.

Plenty of the women who were single in the nineteenth century wrote about their desire to evade marriage. Marriage was scary in a lot of ways. It often involved having a lot of kids, losing your autonomy, being in service to a husband and children who were often born at an unremitting pace without the benefit of modern medicine.

You become a better dater when you have a truly fulfilling life that is not dependent on someone else. Even if someone leaves, your life continues unscathed.