“I believe that more people would be alive today if there were a death penalty.”

“Inrealized how valuable the art and practice of writing letters are, and how important it is to remind people of what a treasure letters--handwritten letters--can be. In our throwaway era of quick phone calls, faxes, and email, it's all to easy never to find the time to write letters. That's a great pity--for historians and the rest of us.”

“A woman is like a teabag - only in hot water do you realize how strong she is.”

“A woman is like a teabag. It's only when she's in hot water that you realize how strong she is.”

“If you analyze it I believe the very heart and soul of conservatism is libertarianism. I think conservatism is really a misnomer just as liberalism is a misnomer for the liberals — if we were back in the days of the Revolution, so-called conservatives today would be the Liberals and the liberals would be the Tories. The basis of conservatism is a desire for less government interference or less centralized authority or more individual freedom and this is a pretty general description also of what libertarianism is.”

“I've always believed that a lot of the trouble in the world would disappear if we were talking to each other instead of about each other.”

“When I learned of Aunt Dimity's death, I was stunned. Not because she was dead, but because I had never known she'd been alive.”