“Yet for all her cantankerousness, the woman had fed her and given her a job, and for the first while a place to live.”

“Giving readings was seen as an embarrassment, and generations of German poets were proud to fumble around in sullen cantankerousness.”

“I know this makes me sound like a curmudgeon, but now that Andy Rooney has died I feel someone has to take up the mantle of cantankerousness.”