“This, milord, is my family's axe. We have owned it for almost nine hundred years, see. Of course, sometimes it needed a new blade. And sometimes it has required a new handle, new designs on the metalwork, a little refreshing of the ornamentation . . . but is this not the nine hundred-year-old axe of my family? And because it has changed gently over time, it is still a pretty good axe, y'know. Pretty good.”

“The man behind the check-in counter gives the impression that he has just axe-murdered the motel's owner (and family, and family pet) and is going through these procedures of hostelry so as not to arouse suspicion.”

“You start out every day with something new and different, and sometimes it looks pretty good and sometimes it doesn't, but you have to go through it anyway.”

“The ultimate luxury is to reread: to revisit a book to see how time has treated it, how memory has distorted it, or how my own passing years have cast a new light on it.”

“We sometimes hear requests for a new program for that group or a new organization for this group or a new activity for the other group. We already have the new program. It is called the family.”

“While this number puts the economic fragility of America’s families in a new light, the shocking statistic is that nine out of every ten black Americans will encounter poverty during their working adult years.”