At All Events, I Do Not Mean

The Optimist Sees A Light At The End Of The Tunnel, The Realist Sees A Train Entering The Tunnel, The Pessimist Sees A Train Speeding At Him, Hell For Leather, And The Machinist Sees Three Idiots Sitting On The Rail Track. "the Optimist Proclaims That We Live In The Best Of All Possible Worlds; The Pessimist Fears This Is True."

If We Assiduously Cultivate Our Powers Of Exaggeration, Perhaps We, Too, Shall Obtain The Paradise Of Liars. And There Raphael Shall Paint For Us Scores And Scores Of His Manifestly Impossible Pictures... And Shakespeare Will Lie To Us Of Fabulous Islands Far Past 'the Still-vex'd Bermoothes,' And Bring Us Fresh Tales From The Coast Of Bohemia. For No One Will Speak The Truth There, And We Shall All Be Perfectly Happy.

I Ask Of Literature Precisely Those Things Of Which I Feel The Lack In My Own Life.

And One Would Worship A Woman Whom All Perfections Dower, But The Other Smiles At Transparent Wiles; And He Quotes From Schopenhauer . Thus Two By Two We Wrangle And Blunder About The Earth, And That Body We Share We May Not Spare; But The Gods Have Need Of Mirth.

I Have Read That The Secret Of Gallantry Is To Accept The Pleasures Of Life Leisurely, And Its Inconveniences With A Shrug; As Well As That, Among Other Requisites, The Gallant Person Will Always Consider The World With A Smile Of Toleration, And His Own Doings With A Smile Of Honest Amusement, And Heaven With A Smile Which Is Not Distrustful — Being Thoroughly Persuaded That God Is Kindlier Than The Genteel Would Regard As Rational.