Our memories are card indexes consulted and then returned in disorder by authorities whom we do not control.

What grape to keep its place in the sun, taught our ancestors to make wine?

The only happy talkers are dandies who extract pleasure from the very perishability of their material and who would not be able to tolerate the isolation of all other forms of composition; for most good talkers, when they have run down, are miserable; they know that they have betrayed themselves, that they have taken material which should have a life of its own, to dispense it in noises upon the air.

The secret of success is to be in harmony with existence, to be always calm to let each wave of life wash us a little farther up the shore.

There are only three things which make life worth living: to be writing a tolerably good book, to be in a dinner party of six, and to be traveling south with someone whom your conscience permits you to love.

The greatest problem with women is how to contrive that they should seem our equals

The English language is like a broad river on whose bank a few patient anglers are sitting, while, higher up, the stream is being polluted by a string of refuse-barges tipping out their muck.