At a dinner party one should eat wisely but not too well, and talk well but not too wisely.
The world is quickly bored by the recital of misfortune, and willing avoids the sight of distress.
Beauty is an ecstasy; it is as simple as hunger. There is really nothing to be said about it. It is like the perfume of a rose: you can smell it and that is all.
No egoism is so insufferable as that of the Christian with regard to his soul.
Like all weak men he laid an exaggerated stress on not changing one's mind.
The most useful thing about a principle is that it can always be sacrificed to expediency.
Men have an extraordinarily erroneous opinion of their position in nature; and the error is ineradicable.
What makes old age hard to bear is not the failing of one's faculties, mental and physical, but the burden of one's memories.
It seems that the creative faculty and the critical faculty cannot exist together in their highest perfection.
I can imagine no more comfortable frame of mind for the conduct of life than a humorous resignation.
It is not wealth one asks for, but just enough to preserve one's dignity, to work unhampered, to be generous, frank and independent.
It's no good trying to keep up old friendships. It's painful for both sides. The fact is, one grows out of people, and the only thing is to face it.
It's a funny thing about life; if you refuse to accept anything but the best, you very often get it.
It's very hard to be a gentleman and a writer.
If you don't change your beliefs, your life will be like this forever. Is that good news?
The great American novel has not only already been written, it has already been rejected.
I'll give you my opinion of the human race in a nutshell... their heart's in the right place, but their head is a thoroughly inefficient organ.
We have long passed the Victorian Era when asterisks were followed after a certain interval by a baby.
Perfection is a trifle dull. It is not the least of life's ironies that this, which we all aim at, is better not quite achieved.
If a nation values anything more than freedom, it will lose its freedom, and the irony of it is that if it is comfort or money that it values more, it will lose that too.
