"Dear Concerned,
What a coincidence—this email, dated April 2020, just landed in my inbox:"

from Dear Prudie's advice to a woman about to marry a man with a serious alcohol problem

"A purchased a flatpack liberal democrat party from Ikea but when I got it home I found it was missing its nuts and the instructions were in French."

comment on the Guardian's Digital Election 2010 coverage

"The changes in the University have brought new challenges to us all. The beginning of this year has been hard but our personnel have praiseworthily had the strength to carry out their actions."

work-related email received this week

"I don't believe that less is more.
I believe that more is more.
That less is less, fat fat, thin thin,
and enough is enough."

quoted in a New York Times feature on the home of Duane Hampton

“There was a Russian joke in the 1950s, during the cold war. It claimed that America had 2 classes of people… the optimist and the pessimist. The optimist was teaching their children how to speak Russian… and the pessimist was teaching their kids Chinese!”

comment on the February 7th Room for Debate feature on Americans learning Chinese in the New York Times

"He looked homemade. As through his wife had self-consciously knitted or somehow contrived a husband when she sat alone at night."

The Key by Eudora Welty

"Live in the sunshine,
swim in the sea,
drink the wild air."

Ralph Waldo Emerson