“Smith, you don't realize it's a privilege to practice giving presents to others.' The way he did it was charming; there was nothing glittery and Christmasy about it, but almost sad, and sometimes his gifts were old beat-up things but they had the charm of usefulness and sadness of his giving.”

“How sad it is!" murmured Dorian Gray with his eyes still fixed upon his own portrait. "How sad it is! I shall grow old, and horrible, and dreadful. But this picture will remain always young. It will never be older than this particular day of June… . If it were only the other way! If it were I who was to be always young, and the picture that was to grow old! For that—for that—I would give everything! Yes, there is nothing in the whole world I would not give! I would give my soul for that!”

“Almost every time somebody gives me a present, it ends up making me sad.”

“In practice, I always get you to give me the red M&M’s.”“That was a device to let you know when you were using enough charm to affect a human,” he snapped. “I got it from a human parenting manual. I didn’t think you were stupid enough to believe you could use your charm against me.”My eyes flashed. I remembered mother telling me the only way she’d found to potty train me was giving me M&M’s. I was not flattered by the comparison.”

“It is a great mistake for men to give up paying compliments, for when they give up saying what is charming, they give up thinking what is charming.”

“Clinton sighed, and gave up. All his life he had given up. He didn't know why it was like that; why a man who wanted nothing but to live honestly and industriously and usefully - who, briefly, asked only the privileges of giving and helping - had had to compromise and surrender at every turn. But that was the way it had been, and that apparently was the way it was to be.”