If This Isn't Nice What Is? (Much) Expanded Second Edition

bedsprings and bridgework

A man’s reach should exceed his grasp, or what’s a heaven for?”

Revenge provokes revenge which provokes revenge which provokes revenge—forming an unbroken chain of death and destruction linking nations of today to barbarous tribes of thousands and thousands of years ago

watch your backs

For good measure

They are simply performing the experiment of doing without hate. Hate is the missing vitamin or mineral or whatever in their diet, they have sensed correctly that hate, in the long run, is about as nourishing as cyanide

All my life I’ve had people to hate—from Hitler to Nixon, not that those two are at all comparable in their villainy. It is a tragedy, perhaps, that human beings can get so much energy and enthusiasm from hate. If you want to feel ten feet tall and as though you could run a hundred miles without stopping, hate beats pure cocaine any day. Hitler resurrected a beaten, bankrupt, half-starved nation with hatred and nothing more. Imagine that.

snap in its stride

Clarking is the most profound and effective form of meditation practiced on this planet, and far surpasses any dream experienced by a Hindu on a mountaintop. Why? Because Clarks, by reading well, can think the thoughts of the wisest and most interesting human minds throughout all history

takes simply forever