Whenever the channels of diplomatical communication between the United States and France shall be opened, I shall demand satisfaction for the insult and reparation for the injury.

The evening began with a ritual I abhored. … My parents would have abhored the idea of a dinner guest thanking them by e-mail, a mode of communication, mercifully, neither of them lived long enough to encounter.

Yet we may be grateful to him for saving for us from the wreck of ancient literature some waifs and strays which, but for his humble labours, might have sunk irretrievably with so many golden argosies in the fathomless ocean of the past.

As for the screechin', one bazoo's as good as a dozen, if so be ye blow it fierce enough.