real letter-writing ... is founded on a need as old and as young as humanity itself, the need that one human being has of another.

A puppy is but a dog, plus high spirits, and minus common sense.

We owe to one another all the wit and good humour we can command; and nothing so clears our mental vistas as sympathetic and intelligent conversation.

No man pursues what he has at hand. No man recognizes the need of pursuit until that which he desires has escaped him.

A dead grief is easier to bear than a live trouble.

People who cannot recognize a palpable absurdity are very much in the way of civilization.

When the contemplative mind is a French mind, it is content, for the most part, to contemplate France. When the contemplative mind is an English mind, it is liable to be seized at any moment by an importunate desire to contemplate Morocco or Labrador.