Helen Simonson Quotes

...as I get older, I find myself insisting on my right to be philosophically sloppy.

We are all small-minded people, creeping about the earth grubbing for our own advantage and making the very mistakes for which we want to humiliate our neighbors.

The human race is all the same when it comes to romantic relations,' said the Major. 'A startling absence of impulse control combined with complete myopia.

He cursed himself for having assumed the weather would be sunny. Perhaps it was the result of evolution, he thought-some adaptive gene that allowed the English to go on making blithe outdoor plans in the face of almost certain rain.

He opened his mouth to say that she looked extremely beautiful and deserved armfuls of roses, but the words were lost in committee somewhere, shuffled aside by the parts of his head that worked full-time at avoiding ridicule.

...I tell myself it does not matter what one reads-favorite authors, particular themes-as long as we read something. It is not even important to own the books.

At our age, surely there are better things to sustain us, to sustain a marriage, than the brief flame of passion?" ..."You are mistaken, Ernest," she said at last. "There is only the passionate spark. Without it, two people living together may be lonelier than if they lived quite alone.

You Anglo-Saxons have largely broken away from such dependence on family. Each generation feels perfectly free to act alone and you are not afraid.

I miss being a student," said Abdul Wahid. "I miss the passionate discussions with my friends, and most of all the hours among the books.