I think that if I get into the habit of writing a bit about what happens, or rather doesn't happen, I may lose a little of the sense of isolation and desolation which abides with me. My circumstances allowing of nothing but the ejaculation of one-syllabled reflections, a written monologue by that most interesting being, myself, may have its yet to be discovered consolations.

Destitution and excessive luxury develop apparently the same ideals, the same marauding attitude towards mankind, the intensity of struggle for material goods, -- surely showing how perfect is the meeting of extremes.

What one reads, or rather all that comes to us, is surely only of interest and value in proportion as we find ourselves therein, -- form given to what was vague, what slumbered stirred to life.

I make it a rule always to believe compliments implicitly for five minutes, and to simmer gently for twenty more.

How fatally the entire want of humor cripples the mind.

I wonder whether if I had an education I should have been more or less a fool that I am.

It is so comic to hear oneself called old, even at ninety I suppose!