I wonder now if I've under-achieved because of this attitude. I didn't write, paint etc. because it was expected that I would. So I bloodymindedly wanted to do something else.

I myself have recently developed mild climacophobia (fear of falling downstairs). Don't know why, but I'm convinced that someday I'll fall down a flight of stairs and hurt myself badly.

Persons who passed each other in boats upon the Thames used to blackguard each other, in a trial of wit

[…] and no botanist could for a moment fail to recognize this fact, especially as just beyond its banks there is growing on every hand the mesquite, the everywhere-present species of the Lower Sonoran zone.