For my part, the good novel of character is the novel I can always pick up; but the good novel of incident is the novel I can never lay down.

The man who never tells an unpalatable truth 'at the wrong time' (the right time has yet to be discovered) is the man whose success in life is fairly well assured.

Sensuality, too, which used to show itself course, smiling, unmasked, and unmistakable, is now serious, analytic, and so burdened with a sense of its responsibilities that it passes muster half the time as a new type of asceticism.

Guests are the delight of leisure, and the solace of ennui.

America has invested her religion as well as her morality in sound income-paying securities. She has adopted the unassailable position of a nation blessed because it deserves to be blessed; and her sons, whatever other theologies they may affect or disregard, subscribe unreservedly to this national creed.

When the milk of human kindness turns sour, it is a singularly unpalatable draught.

Innovations to which we are not committed are illuminating things.