The really great novel tends to be the exact negative of its author's life.

[...] marriage is one thing, and love is another...You need to have a solid canvas; nobody stops you to weave the arabesques.

When you become used to never being alone, you may consider yourself Americanised

Either the soul is immortal and we shall not die, or it perishes with the flesh and we shall not know that we are dead. Live, then, as if you were eternal.

If men could regard the events of their own lives with more open minds, they would frequently discover that they did not really desire the things they failed to obtain.

People are what you make them. A scornful look turns into a complete fool a man of average intelligence. A contemptuous indifference turns into an enemy a woman who, well treated, might have been an angel.

I knew a man who had been virtually drowned and then revived. He said that his death had not been painful.