It is bad enough to be bad, but to be bad in bad taste is unpardonable.

Why do so many ingenious theorists give fresh reasons every year for the decline of letter writing, and why do they assume, in derision of suffering humanity, that it has declined? They lament the lack of leisure, the lack of sentiment ... They talk of telegrams, and telephones, and postal cards, as if any discovery of science, any device of civilization, could eradicate from the human heart that passion for self-expression which is the impelling force of letters.

What puzzles most of us are the things which have been left in the movies rather than the things which have been taken out.

We know when we have had enough of a friend, and we know when a friend has had enough of us. The first truth is no more palatable than the second.

The vanity of man revolts from the serene indifference of the cat.

Diaries tell their little tales with a directness, a candor, conscious or unconscious, a closeness of outlook, which gratifies our sense of security. Reading them is like gazing through a small clear pane of glass. We may not see far and wide, but we see very distinctly that which comes within our field of vision.

Philadelphians are every whit as mediocre as their neighbors, but they seldom encourage each other in mediocrity by giving it a more agreeable name.