A thin smile, a bright smile or beamish grin. From infancy we learn that widening our mouths wins approval from the universe of strangers inhabiting the earth.

A dog is not a slave, but a friend. It’s important to remember that its shorter life should be rich and full like ours.

To have and to hold, we say in a wedding ceremony because marriage involves holding as well as mere possession.

To live is to see, I always believed, along the waterfronts of Manhattan, Mumbai and Mombasa, gorges in the Himalayas and Alps.

Phone booth, bookworm, crowbait, goose as a verb, horse-trading, horse-faced, cowpies or emotionally cowed, and other farm-based figures of speech like kicking the bucket are disappearing.

Jan. 12 was the 60th anniversary of the publication of Edward Hoagland’s first book. Over the decades he has forged an unparalleled career.