Do not stand on one foot, or bite your fingernails, or tear the rim off your hat, trying to tell a beautiful, healthy twentieth century young woman you love her.  You’ll be all to the mustard.  Do something brave.  Go hire a kid that is a good swimmer, to fall into the lake as you and your sweetheart are walking past, then throw back your shoulders and tear off your coat and leap in, the kid will get you to shore, but you’ll be a hero in her eyes.  Impersonate the hero, and you will win the heroine.

Young woman, if you would marry a hero, impersonate beauty.  Maiden lady of quite impossible age, if you would marry the best man in the world, impersonate youth and beauty.  Dear languishing widow, if you would marry a real man, impersonate youth, beauty and wealth.  You will win.  The odds are much against you here in the East, where in every state there are thousands and thousands of more women than there are men, but you will win.  Men follow actresses around the world because they impersonate love, passion, beauty, virtue and nobleness.  The men really think actresses must possess what they portray.  You see, it is all a matter of thinking.  It does not matter how many times a man has lost on the races, if he is a good sport he will bet on the next horse that looks good to him.  Women need to impersonate looking good, better, best.  Not on occasions only, but all the time.  Men like women who are good pals.  So ladies impersonate sympathy, kindness, patience, good fellowship, enthusiasm, in the things that interest men.  If you belong to the Citrus family, impersonate the Peach.  If you belong to the Nettle family, impersonate the Violet.  You may be so homely that your face pains you, but think of the impersonations of beauty you can buy at the drug store.  Impersonate silence.  A young lady in Philadelphia lost her voice and she had nineteen proposals that year.  Impersonate form.  You may be as angular as the streets in Boston, yet almost any department store will shape you up.  You may be so fat that you haven’t seen your feet in years, still you can impersonate so much good nature that men will be attracted to you as flowers to the sun.

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Have confidence in everything you do, even when you eat sausages at a quick lunch next door to the dog-catcher.

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Hell is not paved with good intentions.  Hell is paved with sanctimonious pretensions.

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When you get up, where does your lap go?  When you love, where does your hate go?

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After you have walked the floor all night trying to get the baby to sleep, you can at least be thankful that you do not live in Greenland where the nights are six months long.

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Avoid hot words in anger, you might tell the truth.  A Chicago father thrashed his son for being out late at night.  Then added:  “When I was your age my father would not let me be out after dark.”  The boy answered:  “Then you must have had a devil of a father.”  The old man came back hotly:  “I had a damn sight better father than you have.”