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.

The most important quality in a leader is that of being acknowledged as such. All leaders whose fitness is questioned are clearly lacking in force.

Artificial inflation of stocks must be considered a crime as serious as counterfeiting, which it closely resembles.

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

A great biography should, like the close of a great drama, leave behind it a feeling of serenity. We collect into a small bunch the flowers, the few flowers, which brought sweetness into a life, and present it as an offering to an accomplished destiny. It is the dying refrain of a completed song, the final verse of a finished poem.

There are deserts in every life, and the desert must be depicted if we are to give a fair and complete idea of the country.

Lost Illusion is the undisclosed title of every novel.