“The British nation is unique in this respect: they are the only people who like to be told how bad things are, who like to be told the worst.”

“The newspaper journalists like to believe the worst; they can sell more papers that way, as one of them told me himself; for even upstanding and respectable people dearly love to read ill of others.”

“Who we’re told to be carries the weight of history behind it. We may not like it but we better know it. Who we’re told to be is no accident, but rather a purposeful construction of centuries of accumulated fear. Who we’re told to be can be deliberately deconstructed.”

“People who drink to drown their sorrow should be told that sorrow knows how to swim.”

“..The secrets started when the maid told her friend, the maid next door who told her Mistres, who told the across the street neighbor and soon the tongues were wagging like flags in the wind....”

“While people may differ in many respects, the reality is that how they respond to their prevailing conditions separates them into two distinct groups: people who are good, and people who are bad.”