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In America, the idea of traveling by train is something of a touchstone. Mention it to some people and their eyes light up; an instant bond is formed and stories of memorable journeys tumble out.

As the story is usually now told, Charles Frederick Worth (1825–1895), often described as a French couturier of British origin, created the institution of haute couture.

At stake in this difference between the schlemiel and the cynic (or kynic) is a choice between one way of evaluating and understanding reality, chance, and humor and another.

The 50-year-old Visionaide class record book is spread open among baskets of corn chips and beer bottles. Its ruled pages, bound with a mottled cover, document the grades of 46 high school students in 1959, the year I found my way in school.

What made C. P. Cavafy write some of the most original poetry in the world? I went to Athens in January 2015 to find out. Born in Alexandria on April 29, 1863, Cavafy died there, on the same day seventy years later.

Cynicism includes all of the above-mentioned aspects. We see this by way of three great French writers, Charles Baudelaire, Louis-Ferdinand Celine, and Michel Houellebecq.

Cicero thought superior writers, or their souls, would survive death and enter an eternal realm "where eminent and excellent men find their true reward."

The teacher can only guide, lead the ones being taught. For, it is not a direct transference of information, or even knowledge, but a leading by example; where the habits of the teacher — and by extension the teacher’s habitus — is the very site of the teaching.

My Yorkshire friend was saying that she hated being in an old house. There seemed to be other people in it besides the living.

Tell me about Slug’s, that much-loved and famously dangerous place on East 3rd Street between Avenues B and C.

No American, not a commercial or otherwise hardened traveler, can have a soul so dead as to be incapable of emotion when, on his return from a long trip abroad, he catches sight of the low-lying and insignificant Long Island coast.

Last week my phone company made me cry. Waiting excitedly for a new phone, I received an email from EE. “We just need a bit more information from you”, they said. “Call us”.