A doctor is advertised by the bodies he cures. My business is advertised by the minds I stimulate. And let me tell you that the book business is different from other trades. People don't know they want books. I can see just by looking at you that your mind is ill for lack of books but you are blissfully unaware of it!

The bicycle, the bicycle surely, should always be the vehicle of novelists and poets.

The most interesting persons are always those who have nothing special to do: children, nurses, policemen and actors at 11 o'clock in the morning.

There are a lot of people who must have the table laid in the usual fashion or they will not enjoy the dinner.

Never write up your diary on the day itself, for it takes longer than that to know what happened.

The enemies of the future are always the very nicest people.

Continually one faces the horrible matter of making decisions. The solution is, as far as possible, to avoid conscious rational decisions and choices; simply to do what you find yourself doing; to float in the great current of life with as little friction as possible; to allow things to settle themselves, as indeed they do with the most infallible certainty.