Aphorisms are bad for novels. They stick in the reader's teeth.

Rome was a poem pressed into service as a city.

Lapped in poetry, wrapped in the picturesque, armed with logical sentences and inalienable words.

When friends stop being frank and useful to each other, the whole world loses some of its radiance.

There was a time when we expected nothing of our children but obedience, as opposed to the present, when we expect everything of them but obedience.

There was a time when we expected nothing of our children but obedience, as opposed to the present, when we expect everything of them but obedience.