“for better or worse, it is the commentator who has the last word.”

“Is this better or worse than being married and living in the suburbs? Better or worse? Who can tell?”

“Sometimes it has to feel worse before it feels better.”

“According, therefore, as this produce, or what is purchased with it, bears a greater or smaller proportion to the number of those who are to consume it, the nation will be better or worse supplied with all the necessaries and conveniencies for which it has occasion.”

“Stilletos of a frozen stillicide [...] In the lovely line heading this comment the reader should note the last word. My dictionary defines it as 'a succession of drops falling from the eaves, eavesdrop, cavesdrop.' I remember having encountered it for the first time in a poem by Thomas Hardy. The bright frost has eternalized the bright eavesdrop.”

“I can be nothing worse and nothing better than who I am...Elly.”