“It would seem that something which means poverty, disorder, and violence every single day should be avoided entirely, but the desire to beget children is a natural urge.”

“Violence should not always beget more violence.”

“Every gesture was one of disorder and violence, as if a lioness had come into the room.”

“One thing I know for sure about raising children is that every single day a kid needs discipline.... But also every single day a kid needs a break.”

“It would evidently take more than a political regime, more than dire poverty to stop a woman from wanting to be well-dressed: it was a desire as old as the world, as old as the desire for children.”

“The doctrine of the mean (the epithet 'golden' is un-Aristotelian) regularly occurs in later writers as a piece of moral advice -- a recipe or rule reminding us to 'observe the mean', to be moderate in all things and to avoid excess and deciciency. (If the doctrine urges us not to drink too much wine, it equally urges us not to drink too little -- but that is something which the moralizers usually find it prudent to ignore.)”