Words are dangerous things.

Nothing fans me into such a state of peaceful mental somnambulance as the intellectual antics of a person who displays his learning, not from vanity always, but frequently because it is all he has got; no real sense, no wisdom of his own, merely much good stuff he has learned from other sources. He spreads it like a garment as any other decent person would to hide the thinness of his shanks.

Not everything you hear about yourself can be considered good publicity. And if you have delicate sensibilities, the currycomb of public imagination frequently rubs your vanities the wrong way.

... to be human is to be on the defensive, somewhere, somehow.

Mere words will not do. They must convey the color, charm, and pulse of life. They must have a private twinkle of wit in them that makes a good-natured noise like laughter through the keyhole of the reader's mind.

No one has yet had the courage to memorialize his wealth on his tombstone. A dollar mark would not look well there.

So long as a man attends to his business the public does not count his drinks. When he fails they notice if he takes even a glass of root beer.